NEWSLETTER


Issue 39
January - February 2003

4,600 patients randomised

 

The recruitment challenge has been intensified

We have raised the stakes and increased the monthly recruitment targets for the next 18 months of the trial. This is to ensure that there is no risk of us not achieving our final total of 20,000 patients. To date, we have achieved all our recruitment targets. The challenge is now on to ensure we continue to do so. The overall recruitment rate for the trial is about two patients per active hospital per month. As you can see from the graph below, some countries are achieving way above that rate. However, the rate varies widely from hospital to hospital. We need everyone to try and climb up to the blue line on the graph to ensure we reach our intended number of patients.


Khon Kaen University Hospital
Congratulations to Surakrant Yutthakasemsunt and his team at Khon Kaen Regional Hospital in Thailand for achieving the highest recruitment rate in the trial this month. Surakrant writes: "In KKH we care TBI patients both in trauma center (ward TM1) and the old trauma ward (ward TM2 in the picture). Located in Khon Kaen, a province in northeastern part of Thailand, KKH is an 800-bed tertiary care hospital with a trauma center. We have two neurosurgeons and one part time neurosurgeon and we care for about 3,000-5,000 TBI patients annually. TBI forms nearly half of our routine work here. The head of our surgical unit is Dr Somboon Tangkoolboriboon, head of trauma center is Dr Wittaya Chardbanchachai and the director is Dr Wittaya Tianjarupoonphol."

Hospital Luis Vernaza
Congratulations also to Mario Izurieta and his team at Hospital Luis Vernaza in Ecuador – from expressing interest in October 2002 to achieving the highest rate of recruitment for South America (second highest in the world at the moment) in less than three months. "The Hospital, founded in 1564 is a General Hospital administered by the Welfare Board of Guayaquil. We have 782 beds and 84 more beds on the emergency ward. We receive patients from every city in Ecuador covering a population of almost four million people. Most of the patients admitted to our hospital are poor people. During the last year we admitted 19,184 patients to the emergency ward. We are the main trauma care hospital in our city, which has a population of 2.5 million people. There are two neurosurgeons on call everyday for surgical treatment of patients."

Mentions – Thank you all!

New ethics approvals

Wang Maode and Guo Shiwen, Xi'an Jiaotong University 1st Hospital, China

Wei Shi and Liu Chongxiao, Xi'an Jiaotong University 2nd Hospital, China

Roberto Gomez Piñedo, Hospital Timothy Britton (first patient), Colombia

Edgar Luna, Hospital Departamental de Pasto, Colombia

Jesus Quiñones, Hospital San Andrés (first patient), Colombia

Gladys Rivas-Caniño, Hospital Miguel Enriquez, Cuba

Roberto Santos, Hospital Regional del IESS "Dr. Teodoro Maldonado Carbo", Ecuador

Mario Piños Gavilanes, Hospital Alcivar, Ecuador

Jaime Velasquez Tapia, Hospital Naval, Ecuador

Tamara Gogichaishvili, Republican Hospital, Georgia

Wu Hoong Chhang, North Bengal Neuro Research Centre, India

A Satish, Abhaya Hospital, India

Ehsan Sherafat Kazemzadeh, Social Security Hospital (first patient) and

Fatemeh Zahra Hospital, Iran

Vittorio Vitalone, S Filippo Neri, Italy

Edward O Komolafe, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals (10 patients), Nigeria

Jose Edmundo Mezquita, Complejo Hospitalario M. A. Guerrero, Panama

David Foley, Queen Mary's Hospital, United Kingdom

Branco Djurovic, Klinicki Centar Srbije, Yugoslavia

1st patient

Marcos Iraola Ferrer, Hospital Universitario "Dr Gustavo Aldereguia Lima", Cuba

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

Antonios Karavelis, University General Hospital of Larissa, Greece

K S Maheshwari, Maheshwari Orthopaedic Hospital, India

Manas Panigrahi, Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, India

Adam Danil and Remus Iliescu, Sfantum Pantelimon Hospital, Romania

Charles Seah, Changi General Hospital, Singapore

Maria Cifranicova, NsP Trebisov, Slovakia

Radovan Wiszt, NsP Liptovsky Mikulas, Slovakia

Alfonso Muñoz López, Hospital Carlos Haya, Spain

Titus Odedun, Ormskirk And District General Hospital, United Kingdom

10 pts
Walter Videtta, Hospital Dr Ramón Carillo, Argentina

Ivan Chytra, Charles University Hospital, Plzen, Czech Republic

50 pts
Ignacio Gonzalez and Miguel Fernando Arango, Hospital General de Medellin, Colombia

Alvaro Ardila Otero, Hospital Universitario San Jorge, Colombia

Nyoman Golden, Sanglah General Hospital, Indonesia

Stefan Trenkler, Reimann Hospital, Slovakia

Surakrant Yutthakasemsunt, Khon Kaen Regional Hospital, Thailand – 50 pts in the first seven weeks

200 pts
Bennie Hartzenberg, Tygerberg Academic Hospital, South Africa

 

Have you visited CRASHNET?

CRASHNET is a website exclusively for CRASH collaborators with five main features:

1. Enter EOF data directly
2. Analyse EOF data for your hospital or for the whole trial
3. Forum (discuss any topic you wish)
4. Order trial materials
5. Follow-up (patients followed up and those who are due)

For example, by logging in to CRASHNET, collaborators can easily make simple analyses of some of the trial data, such as this table showing time to treatment from injury by patient gender.

We already receive EOF data through CRASHNET, but would like to encourage more collaborators to use this method.

If you would like more information about how to access CRASHNET, please send an email to: CRASH@LSHTM.AC.UK with the subject "CRASHNET Information".

 

8th Edinburgh Clinical Trial Management Course

26-28 February 2003
Point Hotel Conference Centre, Edinburgh

This three-day course has been running since 1994 and is recognised by the UK Medical Research Council. ECTMC focuses primarily on efficient management of randomised controlled trials (RCT), but also covers some aspects of trial design. The course is a mixture of lectures and small group workshops. Its practical approach takes participants step by step through all stages of a well-run trial.

Topics include:

The rationale of RCTs
Starting up a trial
Regulatory requirements
Involving consumers
Designing trial materials that work
Methods of randomisation
Maximising recruitment
Managing data effectively
Managing a realistic trial budget

For further details visit www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/ectmc


CRASH Co-ordinating Centre, LSHTM, 49-51 Bedford Square, LONDON WC1B 3DP

Tel +44(0)20 7299 4684 - Fax +44(0)20 7299 4663 - email CRASH@LSHTM.AC.UK

 


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