Clinical trials

Kidney failure is fatal without dialysis. Peritoneal dialysis (PD) completed at home offers greater flexibility and autonomy for patients . However, PD is often prescribed for 24 hours/day, 7 days/week for every patient starting dialysis. This practice is not evidence-informed, may be unnecessary and potentially harmful. The STEP-PD trial aims to determine the optimal approach to commencing patients on PD through starting at low dose PD and incrementing over time.

BEAT-BK will see the effect of immunosuppression reduction/modification with and without IVIG on BKPyV infection, allograft function, allograft loss, acute transplant rejection, immunosuppression load and death in kidney and simultaneous kidney pancreas transplant recipients with polyomavirus infections (BKPyV).

The INCH-HD trial will test if incremental HD preserves the quality of life of patients and families and is a safe, practical, cost effective treatment option.

The IVCare trial is a multicentre adaptive platform study evaluating interventions to prevent infections and other complications associated with central venous access devices (CVADs) in patients with newly inserted or existing devices. The study is organised into domains addressing different aspects of CVAD care and includes patient groups referred to as strata. Domains, strata and interventions may change over time as the study progresses. IVCare also includes an observational cohort study in which patients with CVADs are followed to assess CVAD care practices, infections, and other CVAD-related complications across health services. The trial starts with two domains. The Connectors/Caps Domain compares antimicrobial chlorhexidine-containing connectors and caps with standard-of-care connectors and caps used in Australian hospitals. In the cancer stratum, participants are randomised to receive either InVision-Plus CS® or standard-of-care connectors/caps. In the kidney disease stratum, participants are randomised to receive either ClearGuard™ HD or standard-of-care connectors/caps. Following a predefined stopping decision for ClearGuard™ HD in the kidney disease stratum, Tego™ will be introduced and evaluated in this group. The Securement Domain compares the effectiveness of SecurAcath®, a subcutaneous anchor securement system, with standard-of-care securement methods used in Australian hospitals. Participants in both the cancer and kidney disease strata are randomised to receive either SecurAcath® or standard-of-care securement.

Mycobacterium abscessus (MABS) is a group of rapid-growing, multi-drug resistant non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) causing infections in humans. MABS pulmonary disease (MABS-PD) can result in significant morbidity, increased healthcare utilisation, accelerated lung function decline, impaired quality of life, more challenging lung transplantation, and increased mortality. While the overall numbers affected is small, the prevalence of infections is increasing worldwide. The Finding the Optimal Regimen for Mycobacterium abscessus Treatment (FORMaT) trial aims to produce high quality evidence for the best treatment regimens to maximise health outcomes and minimise toxicity and treatment burden, as well as developing biomarkers (serology, gene expression signatures, and radiology) to guide decisions for starting treatment and measuring disease severity in patients with MABS PD.

The goal of this clinical trial is to compare a chlorhexidine antimicrobial barrier cap in patients requiring hemodialysis treatment to the standard hemodialysis caps currently used within the Metro North Kidney Health Service. The main questions to answer are: * Study Feasibility * Occurrence of infectious complications related to renal central venous catheters Participants will be randomly allocated to receive either of the below hemodialysis caps to cover their hemodialysis catheter hub: * The standard hemodialysis cap used at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, or * The intervention hemodialysis cap containing chlorhexidine inside it Researchers will compare standard and chlorhexidine hemodialysis caps to see if the presence of chlorhexidine improves the occurrance of infectious complications related to the hemodialysis catheter.

The LIAISE study is a prospective observational study comparing the performance of load-incorporating echocardiographic parameters and conventional parameters in predicting adverse events among adult patients presenting to the ICU with sepsis. It will be conducted in hospitals in Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Canada, with 199 patients recruited over 2 years. All included patients will receive an regular echocardiographic assessment and their haemodynamic parameters will be simultaneously recorded. Participants will be followed for up to 1 year after enrolment. Load incorporating parameters will be derived from regularly obtained echocardiography and haemodynamic data during offline analysis. The predictive value of cardiac parameters will be evaluated based on their statistical association with clinical outcomes.

This project aims to address invasive fungal infections in patients, by precision dosing of voriconazole based on CYP2C19 genotype testing with Bayesian dose-forecasting dosing software to develop patient-centric and maximally effective dosing regimens. This study investigates if voriconazole increases the proportion of patients achieving therapeutic exposure at day 8 of dosing compared with standard care; and will assess factors that influence the implementation of genotype testing and dosing software in the healthcare system, including fidelity, feasibility, acceptability and cost-effectiveness. It will recruit at least 104 kids and adults in a parallel-group randomised clinical trial. A hybrid feasibility sub-study will assess the scalability of genotype-directed dosing to ensure sustainable integration of the interventions into the clinical workflow. A health economic sub-study will evaluate the costs, health outcomes and cost-effectiveness of genotype-directed testing compared to standard care.

This study will investigate if a medication (metformin) widely used in the treatment of diabetes could be re-purposed for the treatment of patients with a diagnosis of early stage ADPKD to slow the rate of kidney function decline, reducing morbidity and mortality and improving the quality of life for ADPKD patients.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a new combination antibiotic treatment (Arm D) works to treat a rare lung condition called mycobacterium abscessus pulmonary disease in people of any age and sex, when compared to the standard treatments. It will also learn about the safety of this new combination antibiotic treatment when compared to the standard treatments. The main questions it aims to answer are: * How well does Arm D treat mycobacterium abscessus pulmonary disease? * What side effects does Arm D cause when used to treat mycobacterium abscessus pulmonary disease? Researchers will compare Arm D to the current standard of care treatments to see if Arm D treats mycobacterium abscessus pulmonary disease better and if it will cause less side effects. Participants will: * Be screened and recruited to the FORMaT adaptive platform trial (NCT04310930) * Be given Arm D for 4 weeks or standard of care treatments for 6 weeks. * Be reviewed by the study doctors weekly for checkups and tests. * Provide respiratory samples (sample coughed up from the chest), respond to quality-of-life questionnaires, have CT lung scans and blood tests.

Blood cultures (BCs) are a blood test to look for an infection. Two problems with the sample collection are contamination by germs outside of the blood and not collecting enough blood in the tube, resulting in unusable samples. Many patients requiring a BC also have a peripheral intravenous catheter ("catheter") but these are not normally used for blood sampling. This means that patients receive many painful needles for both catheter insertion and blood sampling. There is a needle-free blood collection device (PIVO Pro) which can be used with a catheter to collect a blood sample. The goal of the PIVO Trial is to see if using the PIVO Pro for blood culture sample collection will have a lower amount of contamination than the usual method of blood sample collection. Patients 18 and older at 3 emergency departments will be included. Research nurses will look for patients in emergency who need a blood culture sample taken and they will be asked if they want to be involved in the trial. Half of the participants will use the PIVO Pro to take their blood sample and half will have the usual way of collecting blood. Participants do not have to do anything specifically for the trial. Information about the blood collection and results of the blood culture will be collected from the medical records and recorded for the trial.

PRESENT is a multi-center randomised controlled trial that aims to assess whether access to pasteurized donor human milk as supplementary nutrition in the first five days of life for term infants born to women with diabetes in pregnancy reduces the proportion of infants who are admitted to a neonatal unit for management of hypoglycemia compared with current standard hospital care. The trial will also assess other important outcomes including breastfeeding rates, maternal mental health, and infant cow's milk allergy. There will be two treatment arms. In the intervention arm, PDHM will be made available to infants from randomisation until day 5 of life. Infants allocated to the control arm will receive care as per local unit policy, including supplemental nutrition as recommended by the treating clinician. After hospital discharge, participants will be asked to complete an electronic questionnaire at 2 \& 6 weeks and 6 \& 12 months after birth. Questionnaires will assess infant feeding practices, maternal quality of life \[including anxiety and depression symptoms and health-related quality of life\] along with infant cow's milk allergy symptoms.

A study to evaluate the use of density spectral array display in comparison with Bispectral index in a clinical setting.

Dementia is observed in 80% of people living with advanced stage Parkinson's disease, however, there are inadequate opportunities for early and effective diagnosis of dementia in current clinical practice. This study aims to identify whether a new tool called PDCogniCare, can improve detection of dementia in people living with Parkinson's disease, and to explore what factors might influence its use in healthcare services.

During end-stage kidney disease, clinical guidelines suggest reducing elevated phosphate levels in the blood. However, the effect of lowering blood phosphate levels on important patient-centred outcomes has never been tested. This trial will evaluate whether compared to high levels, lowering blood phosphate levels would reduce death or major events due to heart disease, improve physical health, and be cost-effective.

This is a prospective randomized controlled trial comparing two different physical therapy approaches to the treatment of posttraumatic headache with autonomic symptoms. AIM 1: To establish the efficacy of SPINEPASS against Standard Physical Therapy to reduce headache disability and impact amongst patients with persistent post-concussion headache. AIM 2: Demonstrate the superiority of SPINEPASS in the efficient self-management of headache. Demonstrate its appropriateness, acceptability, and feasibility and gain patient insights among patients with PPTH compared to standard PT.

This research project aims to test whether early interventions delivered remotely and prior to integrated care clinic appointments are effective. Patients with chronic unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms will initially undergo structured assessment of symptoms and wheat intolerance delivered remotely. Patients who continue to experience symptoms will then be randomised to a pre-consultation intervention ((a) standardised dietician supervised intervention, b) exercise intervention, c) internet delivered cognitive behavior therapy or d) nothing) followed by randomisation to the consultation intervention ((a) consultant-led outpatient clinic or b) a integrated care clinic depending on their response to the initial intervention.

The aim of this study is to determine the effects and mechanisms of 1 x 20-min training in mindfulness meditation and self-hypnosis relative to an inert control. Participants will be randomly assigned to condition. The dual primary outcomes will be pre- to post-training changes in current pain intensity and pain unpleasantness. The active treatments are hypothesized to produce greater reductions in pain outcomes than the control. It is also hypothesized that change in mindfulness will be a mediator specific to mindfulness meditation, while change in affect and decentering will be mediators of the hypnosis condition. Moderators of response will also be explored.

The present study is a proof-of-concept clinical trial to test the efficacy of low doses of a repurposed anti-epileptic drug (levetiracetam) in treating memory problems in Parkinson's disease (PD). Neuroimaging techniques will be used to determine the effect of the drug on specific brain regions (hippocampal subfields). Finally, baseline brain activity of PD patients with memory problems will be compared to PD patients without memory problems and healthy older adults to determine if activity in specific brain regions (hippocampal subfields) can be used to predict memory problems in PD. This information will be useful for future clinical trials to target drugs to these brain regions.

This study is recruiting patients at their regular skin examination appointments to participate in research. Participation involves having 3D total body photography, completing a 10-15 minute questionnaire, and providing a genetic sample. Normally, the total body photography is part of the patients standard care, as is the collection of a genetic sample. Consenting to this study involves consenting to the use of total body photography images (de-identified), questionnaire answers, and genetic risk information to be used for developing AI algorithms for image analysis of skin lesions, and melanoma-risk profiling for patients.