The first Egyptian CRASH Trial Collaborators’ Meeting was held earlier this year in conjunction with the First Mataria International Educational Conference – a large, successful conference organised for Teaching Hospitals in both Egypt and abroad.  The meeting was held in Cairo, Egypt.  Our thanks go to Hesham Fathey from Suez Canal University Hospital, Ismailia, and Hussain Khamis from Mataria Teaching Hospital, Cairo, for organising the CRASH Trial meeting as part of this event. 

Our sincere thanks go to Abdullah Fekry and Ahmed Diwan, General Manager and Deputy General Manager of Mataria Teaching Hospital, to Wafaa Mohammed El-Said, Head Nurse at Mataria, and also Nabil Hassan and Khalid El-Sayed in the Department of Neurosurgery, Ismailia, for welcoming us to their hospitals and making our visit so enjoyable.

The collaborators’ meeting was a great success with doctors and nurses attending from many different hospitals in Egypt including Al-Salam, El Zaytound, Shebien El Koom and Naser City.  We look forward to these centres joining the CRASH Trial collaborative group in the near future. 

Centres in Cairo and Ismailia are already recruiting high numbers of patients with a good team structure in place, and well worked out strategies to achieve good follow-up at six months.

Recruitment has started rapidly in new centres in the UK - Institute of Neurology in London, Withybush Hospital in Pembrokeshire and Worthing Hospital in Sussex, as well as the new centres in Argentina - Hospital Jose Penna, Hospital Italiano and Hospital San Bernardo.  Ethics approvals have recently been obtained by Carlos Ortiz Ovelar in Instituto de Prevision Social in Paraguay, Miguel Fernando Arango in Hospital General de Medellin and Hana Andrejsova in University Hospital Charles University in Czech Republic.

Patients enrolled in the CRASH trial are contacted within six months to assess their recovery using the Glasgow Outcome Scale.  Janice Fernandes, based at the CRASH Co-ordinating Centre in London, conducts the follow-up of patients from the UK and Eire and has overall responsibility for co-ordinating patient follow-up in every country taking part in CRASH. Worldwide, patient follow-up is conducted by the National Co-ordinators and their teams.  We would like to thank them all for their efforts and commitment to achieving high rates of follow-up:
    Guy Mazairac (Belgium);  Petr Svoboda and Peter Scheer (Czech Republic); 
      Hussain Khamis and Hesham El-Sayed (Egypt);  Michael Gaab (Germany); 
      Pavlos Myrianthefs (Greece);  Jafri Abdullah (Malaysia);  Stefan Trenkler (Slovakia); 
      Naren Nathoo, Bennie Hartzenberg and Sipho Khumalo (South Africa); 
      Roberto Lede (Latin America);  A Muñoz-Sanchéz (Spain);  Veroniqué Laloë and Gita Sathiadas (Sri Lanka); 
      Silke Ludwig (Switzerland).

Follow-up is being successfully conducted in many ways in different countries, such as:
» posting questionnaires to patients
» interviewing patients by telephone
» interviewing patients during follow-up clinics
» visiting patients in their homes (in remote areas) 

To help with the work of the follow-up co-ordinators, could everyone completing an Early Outcome Form please ensure that for each patient we have a correct:

»» Name    »» Date of birth    »» Reliable contact    »» Address    »» Telephone number    »» Family doctor