Novel MRI for Diagnosing Traumatic Brachial Plexus Injuries

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Novel Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Diagnosing Traumatic Brachial Plexus Injuries

• IRAS ID

  252045

• Contact name

  Ryckie G Wade

• Contact email

  ryckiewade@gmail.com

• Sponsor organisation

  Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

• Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

  NCT04058821

• Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

  n/a, n/a

• Duration of Study in the UK

  2 years, 9 months, 21 days

• Research summary

  Aims
  1. Investigate new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans for diagnosing severe nerve injury in the arm.
  2. Understand how the brain and spinal cord respond to severe nerve injury using MRI.

  Why is it important?
  The nerves which control movement and feeling in the arm can be severely damaged
  in eg. motorbike crashes, sporting or work-related injuries. Every year 500 adults sustain life-changing major nerve injuries, causing 1) disability needing constant care, 2) life-long pain and 3) mental illness. In England, major nerve injuries cost £250million every year in hospital treatments, unemployment and social care. Injured nerves can be repaired with surgery. To decide if nerves need repairing, exploratory surgery is needed. Instead, we have developed a new MRI scan which could diagnose nerve injuries, meaning that exploratory surgery could be avoided, nerve injuries could be diagnosed sooner and reconstructive surgery performed sooner.

  Some people with nerve injuries develop lifelong pain - if we could understand how the brain adapts, we could learn how to prevent nerve pain. Also, some people don’t recover movement in their hand - if we could understand how the brain reorganises nerves controlling movement, we could predict who would benefit from surgery.

  Recruitment:
  We will recruit 57 adults (over 16 years old) with nerve injuries affecting the arm, who require surgery. We will visit patients and/or their family in hospital soon after injury. Informed written consent or consultee agreement will be obtained

  What will participants have to do?
  Participants will have two MRI scans before surgery (to find out the best time to scan), then two after surgery (at 6 and 12 months). These scans will be for research only and will not change their treatment.

• REC name

  Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  18/YH/0448

• Date of REC Opinion

  17 Jan 2019

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion