Clinical Research Directory

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Patients Undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery

Heart disease is the leading cause of death globally, accounting for 16% of the world's total deaths. The number of cases is expected to increase as our population ages. Heart disease also results in large economic burden. It costs the United States about $219 billion per year. Some patients have symptoms that aren't helped by drugs or other medical treatments. These patients will need a surgery that is called cardiac artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. CABG helps to improve chest pain which is one of the most common complaints of heart disease, and has life-prolonging potential. A limitation of CABG is that it results in increased inflammation. These patients also report high levels of anxiety and depression. Depression and anxiety in the several days surrounding surgery are related to several important things. These include worse health outcomes, worse quality of life, increased risk of death, and increased health care cost. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a kind of therapy. ACT is adaptable, easy to access, and effective in brief formats. ACT has been gaining evidence for its use in many patient samples. Few studies have used ACT with heart disease patients. No known studies currently exist that have used ACT within the few days surrounding CABG surgery. To address this need, the investigators will conduct a two-arm feasibility randomized control trial (RCT). Patients will be randomized to one of two groups. The first group will complete a brief, 2-session telehealth ACT intervention. The second group will be a control group. The control will consist of treatment as usual. The investigators will evaluate the feasibility of this brief ACT intervention delivered in the peri-operative period. The investigators will also examine preliminary efficacy of the ACT intervention. The investigators will examine anxiety, depression, psychological inflexibility, well-being, and cardiovascular health-related quality of life. The investigators will also examine the intervention's impact on inflammation by measuring two inflammatory markers. The results from this study will also lay the groundwork for larger or multiple site RCT studies.

Study of the Vascularization of the Vaginal Slice After Total Laparoscopic Hysterectomy, Using Indocyanine Green Injection.

Hysterectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures in gynecology, especially by laparoscopy. Post-operative complications of hysterectomy are numerous and their causes are poorly understood. Indocyanine green is a fluorescent dye that, when exposed to infrared light, makes it possible to visualize the vascularization by fluorescence. The project consists in studying the vascularization of the vaginal cuff after total laparoscopic hysterectomy using the injection of indocyanine green. This is a prospective feasibility study. During the procedure, after performing the hysterectomy, indocyanine green will be injected intravenously into the patient. A fluorescence video of the vaginal cuff will be recorded. The fluorescence of the recorded images will be analyzed by fluorescence analysis software to obtain an objective value of fluorescence. The fluorescence values will be compared to the occurrence or absence of postoperative complications. This is the first study using this imaging technique combined with indocyanine green in this surgery. This study will employ a novel objective sequential fluorescence analysis software that has already proven its effectiveness in digestive surgery. The sequential measurement of the change in fluorescence intensity visualized in the images of laparoscopy will enable the production of vaginal perfusion graphs using a video modeling tool such as the TRACKER software. This software measures the evolution of green levels in a region of interest, from which a time-fluorescence curve can be obtained. The presence of fluorescence will be defined by a fluorescence intensity value of Fmax-Fmin on the graph.