Publications by authors named "Catherine Spowart"

Aims: Bone and joint infections (BJI) in children are rare but can be serious. Differentiating BJI from other conditions with similar symptoms is critical. Advanced imaging (ultrasound scans (USS) and MRI) is often required to confirm the diagnosis.

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This is a secondary analysis of a multicentre randomized controlled trial of ciclosporin and methotrexate in children and young people (CYP) with severe atopic dermatitis (AD). Longitudinal trough ciclosporin and erythrocyte methotrexate polyglutamate (MTX-PG) concentrations were measured to evaluate their associations with treatment response and adverse events. Both ciclosporin (4 mg kg-1 daily) and methotrexate (0.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study compared the safety and effectiveness of ciclosporin (CyA) and methotrexate (MTX) in treating severe atopic dermatitis (AD) in children and young people aged 2-16 who didn't respond to topical treatments.
  • Cyclists showed more significant improvement at the 12-week mark, with more patients achieving at least a 50% improvement in their AD scores compared to those on MTX.
  • However, by the 60-week follow-up, MTX demonstrated better long-term outcomes, indicating its potential superiority beyond the initial treatment period.
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Aims: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is characterised by left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), myocardial fibrosis, enhanced oxidative stress and energy depletion. Unbound/loosely bound tissue copper II ions are powerful catalysts of oxidative stress and inhibitors of antioxidants. Trientine is a highly selective copper II chelator.

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Introduction: Sleep and epilepsy have an established bidirectional relationship yet only one randomised controlled clinical trial has assessed the effectiveness of behavioural sleep interventions for children with epilepsy. The intervention was successful, but was delivered via face-to-face educational sessions with parents, which are costly and non-scalable to population level. The Changing Agendas on Sleep, Treatment and Learning in Epilepsy (CASTLE) Sleep-E trial addresses this problem by comparing clinical and cost-effectiveness in children with Rolandic epilepsy between standard care (SC) and SC augmented with a novel, tailored parent-led CASTLE Online Sleep Intervention (COSI) that incorporates evidence-based behavioural components.

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Background: In paediatric epilepsy, the evidence of effectiveness of antiseizure treatment is inconclusive for some types of epilepsy. As with other paediatric clinical trials, researchers undertaking paediatric epilepsy clinical trials face a range of challenges that may compromise external validity MAIN BODY: In this paper, we critically reflect upon the factors which impacted recruitment to the pilot phase of a phase IV unblinded, randomised controlled 3×2 factorial trial examining the effectiveness of two antiseizure medications (ASMs) and a sleep behaviour intervention in children with Rolandic epilepsy. We consider the processes established to support recruitment, public and patient involvement and engagement (PPIE), site induction, our oversight of recruitment targets and figures, and the actions we took to help us understand why we failed to recruit sufficient children to continue to the substantive trial phase.

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Introduction: There is widespread variation in the management of rare orthopaedic disease, in a large part owing to uncertainty. No individual surgeon or hospital is typically equipped to amass sufficient numbers of cases to draw robust conclusions from the information available to them. The programme of research will establish the British Orthopaedic Surgery Surveillance (BOSS) Study; a nationwide reporting structure for rare disease in orthopaedic surgery.

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Aims: Slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE) is one of the most common hip diseases of adolescence that can cause marked disability, yet there is little robust evidence to guide treatment. Fundamental aspects of the disease, such as frequency, are unknown and consequently the desire of clinicians to undertake robust intervention studies is somewhat prohibited by a lack of fundamental knowledge.

Methods: The study is an anonymized nationwide comprehensive cohort study with nested consented within the mechanism of the British Orthopaedic Surgery Surveillance (BOSS) Study.

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Background: There is little current consensus regarding the route or duration of antibiotic treatment for acute osteomyelitis (OM) and septic arthritis (SA) in children.

Objective: To assess the overall feasibility and inform the design of a future randomised controlled trial (RCT) to reduce the duration of intravenous (i.v.

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Introduction: Telmisartan, an angiotensin receptor blocker, has beneficial effects on insulin resistance and cardiovascular health in non-HIV populations. This trial will evaluate whether telmisartan can reduce insulin resistance in HIV-positive individuals on combination antiretroviral therapy.

Methods And Analysis: This is a phase II, multicentre, randomised, open-labelled, dose-ranging trial of telmisartan in 336 HIV-positive individuals over a period of 48 weeks.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigated the use of intravenous clonidine as a potential alternative to midazolam for sedation in children in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs).
  • The trial involved 129 children, comparing the effectiveness of clonidine and midazolam in achieving adequate sedation, with results indicating non-inferiority but not equivalence between the two drugs.
  • Both medications were assessed based on the time children spent adequately sedated, recovery after sedation, and any side effects, with clonidine showing promise as a safe option compared to midazolam.
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Background: Adequate sedation is crucial to the management of children requiring assisted ventilation on Paediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU). The evidence-base of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in this area is small and a trial was planned to compare midazolam and clonidine, two sedatives widely used within PICUs neither of which being licensed for that use. The application to obtain a Clinical Trials Authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) required a dossier summarising the safety profiles of each drug and the pharmacovigilance plan for the trial needed to be determined by this information.

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