Parabéns Brazil

The CRASH Trial is well on its way to reach its recruitment target for 2002. This means there will be 4,200 patients in the trial by the end of this year. Each month, more and more hospitals are obtaining research ethics approval to join CRASH, and by the end of the year we will have 150 collaborators around the world. With early outcome data collection 99% complete and six month follow up currently over 90% complete, you have all helped to make CRASH the biggest and most successful head injury trial ever conducted!

These new centres have recently obtained ethics approval:

Walter Videtta, Hospital Dr Ramón Carillo, Argentina

Danielle de Knoop, Clinique Saint-Luc, Belgium – 1st patient

Pedro Bedoya Barrios, Hospital Regional Copiapo, Chile

Mauricio Vasco Ramirez, Clinica Universitaria Bolivariana,
Colombia

Mario Domínguez Perera, Hospital Universitario
"Arnaldo Milián Castro", Cuba

An Karavelis, Peripeheral University General Hospital of
Larissa, Greece

Mazhar Husain, King George Medical College, India

N K Venkataramana, Manipal Hospital, India

Remus Iliescu, Sfantum Pantelimon Hospital, Romania

Johan Du Prees, Nelspruit Medi Clinic, South Africa

Alfonso Muñoz López, Hospital Carlos Haya, Spain

Jose Carlos Martin Rubi, Hospital Torrecárdenas, Spain –
1st patient

Colin Read, Russell's Hall Hospital, UK

GOTHI (The General Organisation for Teaching Hospitals and Institutes) of Egypt have given ethics approval to a group of their member hospitals, who are getting ready to start recruitment:
Damanhour National Medical Institute
Ahmed Maher Teaching Hospital
Al-Sahel Teaching Hospital
Shebin-El Koum Teaching Hospital
Aswan Teaching Hospital
Banha Teaching Hospital
Sohag Teaching Hospital

These newly joined centres have recently recruited their first patient:

Miguel Chung Sang Wong, Hospital Militar De Guayaquil,
Ecuador

Andre Gentil, Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de
Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil

Oscar Palma, Hospital México, Costa Rica

Rowland Cottingham, Royal Sussex County Hospital, UK

Abdelazeem Ali Eldawlatly, King Khalid University Hospital,
Saudi Arabia

Charlotte Sadowski, University Hospital Bern, Switzerland

Jan Pachl, Hospital Kralovske Vinohgrady, Czech Republic

Maria Victoria de la Torre Prados, Hospital Universitario
Virgen de la Victoria,Spain

Cai Xiaodong, Sheng Zheng Second People's Hospital,
China

Many congratulations to these seven collaborating teams who have randomised 10 patients:

Stano Maros, Nemocnica Bojnice, Slovakia

Suzanne Jackson, Dunedin Hospital, New Zealand

Sam Eljamel, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, UK

Jean-Marie Jacques, Hospital of Jolimont, Belgium

Zouheir Jerbi, Hospital Habib Thameur, Tunisia

Silvana Svampa, Hospital Castro Rendon, Argentina

Chen Xinkang, Zhongshan City People's Hospital, China

Many thanks for these two steady recruiters for enrolling 50 patients – A Great Achievement!
Alan Pinto and Diane Lee, Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, UK
Hesham El-Sayed, Suez Canal University, Egypt

Many congratulations for
Tony Bleetman, Shiela Pantrini and team in Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, UK
for randomising 100 patients – Excellent!

In January we congratulated
Petr Svoboda, Jiri Ochmann and Ilona Kantorova in Research Institute for Special Surgery and Trauma
in Brno, Czech Republic
for their 300th randomised patient and now, only six months later, they have enrolled their
patient number 400 – THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Los días 30, 31 de mayo y 1 de junio del presente año, fue realizado por el grupo de neurociencias de la Clínica Las Américas, el Primer Congreso Colombiano de Neuroanestesia, Neurocirugía y Cuidado Neurocrítico, realizado en la cuidad de Medellín. Contamos con la presencia de importantes expositores internacionales entre ellos el profesor Ian Roberts, quien nos dicto dos excelentes conferencias, y fue clave fundamental para el éxito del Simposio del CRASH, realizado paralelamente.

Tuvimos entonces la oportunidad de presentar el estudio en toda su dimensión y culminar con éxito el simposio cuyo tema único fue el estudio y discutir con más de 200 profesionales de la salud la relevancia de la investigación, los resultados alcanzados hasta el momento, la importancia de que cada día sean más los hospitales en el mundo que se vinculen a él y la necesidad fundamental de que los médicos especialistas y generales, cuando reciban a un paciente por trauma conozcan los parámetros y el protocolo para su inclusión en el CRASH. El número de inscritos al CRASH fue importante y esperamos que prontamente se sumen a los ya
participantes.

A pesar de los “muy normales” nervios que evidencio el Dr Roberts antes de llegar a Medellín, obviamente por las condiciones de seguridad, pudimos disfrutar de las bellezas naturales de los alrededores de la cuidad, y también de nuestros atractivos culturales. En el 2004 se realizara el segundo congreso, y esperamos contar con la presencia de muchos mas especialistas del mundo.

Miguel Fernando Arango, National Co-ordinator, Colombia

The team from Spitalul Clinic de Urgenta Bucuresti, Romania, have already shown themselves to be one of our leading recruiters with an average of nearly 10 patients per month enrolled in the trial. The team, lead by Laura Balica, Bogdan Oprita, Rodica Ciolacu and Mircea Sklerniakof (pictured below) are now planning to expand the trial in Romania by holding a two-day conference in September 2002. Neurosurgeons, emergency physicians and nurses will be invited from other large hospitals in Romania. Special invitations will also be made to doctors from
hospitals in Hungary.

A fantastic opportunity is now offered to all CRASH Trial collaborators who have enrolled at least 25 patients into the trial. Access will be via the CRASH website and we will contact all those eligible with a password and instructions how to access the service.

No one can keep up to date with the relevant evidence in their field of interest. The major bibliographic databases cover less than half the world's literature and are biased towards English language publications. Of the evidence available in the major databases, only a fraction can be found by the average searcher. Textbooks, editorials and reviews which have not been prepared systematically may be unreliable. Much evidence is unpublished, but unpublished evidence may be important. More easily accessible research reports tend to exaggerate the benefits of interventions. The Cochrane Library solves many of these problems. It is the best single source of reliable evidence about the effects of health care.

The Cochrane Library consists of a regularly updated collection of evidence-based medicine databases, including The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - evidence based systematic reviews prepared by the Cochrane Collaboration which provide high quality information to people providing care and those responsible for research, teaching, funding
and administration at all levels.