Clinical trials

Severe acute pancreatitis is a serious illness that can cause severe abdominal pain, inflammation, increased abdominal pressure, feeding intolerance, and early problems with breathing, circulation, and kidney function. Patients with severe acute pancreatitis often need treatment in the intensive care unit. Pain control is an important part of treatment, but conventional pain medicines, especially opioids, may cause side effects such as respiratory depression, reduced bowel movement, nausea, vomiting, delirium, and delayed enteral nutrition. Thoracic epidural block is a regional pain-control technique. It may relieve abdominal pain by blocking pain signals and sympathetic nerve activity from the chest and upper abdominal region. This treatment may also reduce the need for systemic opioid medicines, improve bowel function, improve tolerance to enteral nutrition, and reduce the need for early organ support in some patients. This study is a single-center, prospective, randomized, open-label, parallel-group trial. Adult patients with severe acute pancreatitis will be randomly assigned to either a thoracic epidural block group or a conventional analgesia group. Patients in the thoracic epidural block group will receive continuous thoracic epidural infusion of ropivacaine alone, without epidural opioids such as sufentanil, fentanyl, or morphine. Intravenous pain medicines will be used only before epidural block initiation, as rescue analgesia when epidural pain control is inadequate, or after epidural block is paused, fails, or is discontinued. Patients in the conventional analgesia group will receive standard pain treatment according to clinical practice. The main goal of this study is to determine whether thoracic epidural block can increase the number of days patients are alive and free from ICU-level organ support during the first 14 days after randomization. ICU-level organ support includes invasive mechanical ventilation, noninvasive ventilation, vasoactive or inotropic drug infusion, and renal replacement therapy. The study will also evaluate pain scores, opioid consumption, enteral nutrition tolerance, intra-abdominal pressure, organ function scores, complications, length of ICU and hospital stay, hospital cost, 28-day mortality, and adverse events related to thoracic epidural block.

Hepatectomy is an important treatment for liver diseases, and bleeding is one of the most common complications during dissection of the liver parenchyma. The Control Low Central Venous Pressure (CLCVP) technique is currently one of the most important techniques to control intraoperative bleeding. It mainly consists of fluid restriction, position adjustment, and the use of vasodilators. However, these measures focus on decreasing CVP by reducing the volume of return blood, and less attention is paid to factors such as pulmonary vascular resistance and cardiac function. Sildenafil, known as Viagra, is currently used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension in men. Its action inhibits phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) and increases cGMP levels, leading to smooth muscle relaxation and vasodilation. Its pharmacological properties provide potential value for the treatment of many diseases. However, few studies have been conducted both domestically and internationally on the use of sildenafil citrate in liver resection related to CLCVP. This study aims to investigate the influence of preoperative oral administration of Sildenafil Citrate combined with IPM on IBL and surgical results during open or laparoscopic hepatectomy, as well as its safety and feasibility. It is expected to provide an innovative management optimization plan for reducing the bleeding in hepatectomy and to provide empirical support for the potential value of Sildenafil Citrate or Sildenafil-like drugs in improving the safety and quality of perioperative hepatectomy patients.