Clinical trials

The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate the effects of ketamine, in combination with standard inpatient addiction therapy, for adults with depression and alcohol use disorder. After screening and enrollment, participants will undergo baseline assessments of depression, measures of alcohol use and craving, as well as neurocognitive function. Participants will then be randomized to either ketamine (intervention) or midazolam (control). All participants will be admitted for standard inpatient addiction therapy while receiving ketamine or midazolam. Measures on safety, depression and alcohol use disorder will be repeatedly assessed during and after treatment. Final follow-up assessment is scheduled 6 months after baseline assessment.

The goal of this study is to assess the feasibility and safety of faecal microbiota transplantation for Alzheimer's disease.

The DIRECT-CT trial is designed to test the hypothesis that remote controlled CT scanning combined with real time audio-and video conference (AVC) guided assessment from an experienced hospital stroke team (tele-stroke) at decentralized medical centers (DMC) reduces time to intravenous thrombolytic treatment compared to the standard pathway.

The aim is to investigate whether screening with long-term ECG monitoring in individuals with elevated NT-proBNP leads to a lower incidence of ischeamic stroke and death from vascular causes. The project is a sub-study within the 8th wave of the population based Tromsø Study. Information on previous diseases, medication use, and risk factors is collected through questionnaires, blood samples, and measurements of height, weight, blood pressure, and ECG. A total of 4,000 individuals with NT-proBNP levels above the median, without previously known atrial fibrillation (AF) or ongoing anticoagulation therapy, will be randomized to either long-term heart rhythm monitoring (7 days) or a control group without long-term ECG monitoring (2,000 in each group). Individuals with AF in the intervention group will be offered anticoagulation therapy in accordance with current guidelines. The intervention group and the control group will be compared with regards to incident stroke and death within a 6-year follow-up period. Information on endpoints and anticoagulation use will be obtained through linkage to national registries.

Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in Norwegian men, but many tumors are slow-growing and do not require treatment. Today, MRI is good at detecting suspicious lesions, yet it cannot reliably distinguish aggressive tumors from low-grade ones. As a result, many men undergo repeated invasive biopsies. New PET tracers targeting PSMA improve tumor localization and may correlate with cancer aggressiveness, offering potential for better assessment. This project aims to develop a method to predict Gleason Score non-invasively by applying machine learning to PET and MRI data. The work involves early static and dynamic PSMA PET imaging, tracer kinetic modelling, deep learning, and validation of PET-based measurements of PSMA internalization using ex-vivo cellular methods. If successful, the project could reduce the number of biopsies, improve diagnostic accuracy, offer full 3D assessment of the prostate, shorten clinical workflows, and help identify patients who would benefit most from PSMA-based radioligand therapy.

Levothyroxine is the most used thyroid hormone replacement when the thyroid gland is failing. Because dosage adjustment normally takes several months, the investigators have developed a decision support tool (DST) that predicts optimal dosage based on repeated blood samples the first 2 weeks after initiation of therapy. In this randomized study the investigators will include patients that start levothyroxine therapy after total thyroidectomy. The use of DST to advice the physician about an early dosage adjustment will be compared with common clinical practice, that is dosage adjustment every 2 months. The effect of DST use will be assessed by studying the possible relationship between fast optimal dose adjustment, patient reported outcome measures, and ability to work.

This research project aims to study the effect of optimal and individualised nutrition to patients with critical illness during the intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital admission, and until six months after admission. The investigators want to describe and compare the usual care with a dietitian-tailored nutrition care. The hypothesis is that dietitian-tailored nutrition care will result in a higher mean energy intake compared to usual care.

The project is a prospective observational study with the aim of system improvement. It represents accompanying research in connection with the implementation of Safe Emergency Medicine , - an initiative under the auspices of the board of The North Norway Regional Health Authority and The Municipal Health Consortium that aims to provide faster and better treatment to patients with common, serious and time-critical conditions. The focus of the study is the decision-making process and implementation of treatment algorithms for all patients with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) in the regional health trust's admission area. The data sources are 1) structured telephone interviews with providers and decision-makers and 2) electronic medical records (AMIS, DIPS, prehospital medical records from emergency departments, ambulance medical records). The analyses will form the basis for recommendations for improvements in procedures, training and organization.

Prospective observational multi-center intervention study. The study aims to evaluate whether an artificial intelligence (AI) support tool for radiological image processing (StrokeSens, Circle NVI) can accelerate decision making and increase detection rate in patients with an acute ischemic stroke caused by intracranial large vessel occlusion (LVO) or medium vessel occlusion (MeVO) in Northern Norway. Relevant outcomes will be compared between centres with and without available software during the study period.

In this study the investigators would like to study systemic and regional disturbances in patients with sepsis-associated acute kidney injury and in healthy controls undergoing laparoscopic abdominal surgery. Specifically study metabolic, hemodynamic and oxygen transport variables.

Background One third of patients operated for lumbar disc herniation (LDH) or spinal stenosis (LSS) do not achieve substantial improvement. Studies indicate that well informed shared decision making (SDM) can improve the selection to surgery, and thus the outcomes. Numerous algorithms for outcome prediction have therefore been developed, and some use artificial intelligence (AI). Most are trained on small datasets, few are accurate, all are stand-alone or web-based applications not integrated in the electronic health record (EHR), and none are implemented in routine clinical practice. The Norwegian registry for spine surgery (NORspine) comprises a cohort of more than 69,000 cases. The investigators have used AI to analyze the dataset and predict the outcome, and developed a decision support tool (DST) which is seamlessly integrated in the EHR DIPS Arena®. The investigators intend to use the tool to inform the SDM between surgeons and patients about the indication for surgery (yes or no), to increase the proportion with a successful outcome. The aim of the study is to assess the safety and feasibility of the DST for use in a subsequent pilot study. The device The DST (the device) is an integrate compound of software-solutions. Baseline data are registered by patients and surgeons on questionnaires integrated in DIPS Arena®, and transferred to NORspine. The data are also transferred (de-identified) to the AI-enabled prediction algorithm which operates in a cloud-based model hosting service. The algorithm has been trained and validated on a dataset from NORspine. The area under the curve for prediction of the main outcome (Oswestry disability index after12 months) in receiver operating characteristic analysis is very high (0.85) for LDH and moderate (0.72) for LSS. The model host also calculates outcomes (proportions with substantial, slight, or no improvement, and worsening) for the 50 cases with baseline variables most similar to the present case ("patients-like-me"). Finally, the individual prediction and the outcomes for the "patients-like-me" are transferred back and displayed in the regular user interface of DIPS Arena® for use in the SDM. Clinical investigations For this feasibility study, the investigators will use convergent qualitative and quantitative mixed methods. The comparator is decision making in routine clinical practice, without use of the DST. The study will include 20 patients with magnetic resonance imaging confirmed LDH or LSS referred for evaluation of the indication for surgery, and six surgeons who do the evaluations. The study will iteratively redesign the user interface of the DST until it is considered safe and feasible for use in a following pilot study.

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a gastrointestinal syndrome characterized by transmural inflammation and necrosis of the large and/or small bowel and subsequent intramural gas-forming organisms into the intestinal wall. Some preterm infants also develop spontaneous intestinal perforations (SIP) without the classical bowel inflammation/necrosis seen in NEC. NEC and SIP can be challenging to differentiate. Severe cases of both conditions require surgery and often bowel resection, but mortality due to SIP seems lower. Studies looking at "long-term prognosis" of infants with NEC and bowel perforation have mainly assessed outcome until 2-7 years of age. The primary school years is a vulnerable period for ex-preterm children. Disruption in learning and social integration is of great importance for their quality of life (QoL), but little data exist in this age group. Moreover, nutritional deficits (e.g. cobalamin- or iron-deficiency may impact cognitive development, but this has not been investigated in this "high-risk" population in school age. Authors of a recent systematic review on gastrointestinal sequel after NEC-surgery thus called for "more high-quality studies assessing long-term follow-up". In this project we will study the long-term impact of surgery for NEC and bowel perforation in preterm infants, both with a quality of life (QoL) perspective and with a focus on development, growth, nutrition and persistent gastrointestinal problems.

Severe and persisting pain and disability due to a degenerative narrowing of the spinal canal, lumbar spinal stenosis, can be operated with a simple surgical decompression. Sometimes, there is also a slippage of vertebra, degenerative spondylolisthesis. In such cases, instrumental stabilization (e.g. screws and rods) has been recommended. Even though additional fusion is more complex and riskier, and evidence in high-quality Scandinavian studies shows that it is unnecessary, decompression plus fusion is still the treatment of choice in the USA and most European countries. This reluctance to change clinical practice is mainly due to concerns about long-term results, especially higher reoperation rates among patients operated with decompression only. This register-based non-inferiority study aims to assess long-term reoperations among those treated with and without additional fusion surgery.

The present project aims to assess the neurocognitive impact of a two-week once-a-day regimen of intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) compared to sham iTBS, when targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LDLPFC) in clinically depressed outpatients. The study investigates the relationships between changes in cerebral measures and cognitive performance on an N-back task in relation to the antidepressive effect following iTBS.

Although biologic therapy have revolutionized the treatment of Spondyloarthrtitis (SpA), many patients do not experience complete relief of SpA related complaints. It has been established that patients with SpA have an altered composition of microorganisms (microbiota) in the gut compared to healthy controls, and that this correlates to disease activity and respons to therapy. The goal of this randomized double-blind study is to evaluate the efficacy of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in patients with axial SpA with a suboptimal effect of biologic therapy. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Can FMT reduce disease activity in axial SpA? * Can FMT alleviate pain and reduce fatigue in axial SpA? * Is the composition of microorganisms restored to normal in patients with SpA after a treatment with FMT? Participants will receive a single treatment in the form of an enema with either donor FMT or placebo at baseline. The primary endpoint will be evaluated after 90 days, but efficacy and safety will be monitored from baseline until 365 days.

The present proposal aims to asses which is the optimal treatment strategy in a clinical study in patients with paraoesophageal hernia (PEH), a condition often found in elderly, fragile patients The investigator want to study the optimal approach to a paraoesophageal hernia (PEH) repair. The incidence of PEH increases with age and the older patient typically has additional co-morbidities, reduced physiological fitness, and frailty which makes surgery challenging regarding increased morbidity and mortality. Thus, the decision to offer surgery can be challenging in this cohort of patients. The need of an anti-reflux procedure as part of the repair is one of the main subjects for discussion worldwide. To date no consensus exists and many surgical centres do a routine anti-reflux procedure as part of their standard operation for PEH. But is this procedure redundant? Can the patients be managed with a less complicated procedure; an anterior gastropexy with comparable outcome?

Objectives: The main objective of the study is to investigate 1. How many patients will attend and complete dental care if they are offered it for free during the stay at "The department of substance abuse treatment, University Hospital North Norway (UNN) in Narvik". 2. Explore whether a parallel dental treatment in addition to the other treatment at the department has a beneficial effect on the abuse treatment, or whether it can be disruptive to offer dental treatment in combination with admission for drug rehabilitation?

Patients with left bundle branch block have an increased risk for the development of heart-failure and death. However, risk factors for unfavorable outcomes are still poorly defined. This study aims to identify echocardiographic parameters and ECG characteristics by machine learning in order to develop individual risk assessment