* * * CONGRATULATIONS YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE * * *
| While US President George Bush, British prime minister Tony Blair and Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar were meeting in the Azores to plan the war on Iraq, a truly international coalition meeting was taking place in Namur, Belgium, and one with a clear humanitarian aim - to ensure the success of the CRASH trial in the hope that its results will improve the care of the millions of people around the world who suffer a serious head injury every year. |
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The
National Co-ordinators of the 19 top recruiting countries met over two
days to plan how they will expand recruitment so that we double the
number of patients recruited in the coming year. The meeting was opened
by Monsieur Poncelet, President of Centre Hospitalier Regional de
Namur, who welcomed the international delegates and offered a call
for world peace. The meeting was a huge success and we thank Guy
Mazairac and all his colleagues from the Service Des Urgences
(SAMUR de Namur) for all their hard work and for making us all so
welcome. |
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FOCUS ON INDIA Welcome to all our Indian collaborators who have joined recently. We now have ten hospitals who have started recruiting or are about to start with several others in the process of applying for ethical review. Four of the first collaborators to join the trial attended a meeting at the London Co-ordinating Centre in November 2002. The aim of the meeting was to determine the best approach to achieve high recruitment of patients in India and 100% complete data sets. The meeting was very successful with each collaborator identifying strategies that will ensure success at their hospital. We currently have some difficulties with getting the trial materials through customs. We have applied to the Director General of Health Services for approval to import and will keep you informed of our progress. |
 Above with Ian Roberts and Haleema Shakur: N K Venkataramana, Consultant Neurosurgeon, Manipal Institute for Neurological Disorders, Bangalore Vijaya Ushanath Sethurayar, Senior Consultant Neurosurgeon, Meenakshi Mission Hospital & Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Rajesh Bhagchandani, Consultant in Critical Care, Apex Hospital, Madhya Pradesh Mazhar Husain, Head, Department of Neurosurgery, King George Medical College, Lucknow |
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR TELEPHONE RANDOMISERS Some of you have
recently experienced problems trying to randomise patients by telephoning
the Clinical Trials Unit. We are working with the Unit to resolve these
problems but in the meantime, if telephone randomisation fails, please
use the lowest available pack number and fax the patient entry form
to us at +44 (0)20 7299 4663. This method should only be used as a last
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HAVE YOU SEEN CRASHNET RECENTLY? Collaborators
can now access CRASHNET from the CRASH website. With
CRASHNET you can provide your EOF data more easily using the user-friendly
interface. By sending your data electronically you will be helping to
ensure your data are more efficiently processed into the trial database.
You will also ensure that your data will be added to your existing data
quicker and will be available for analysis. You can now join the discussions taking place in the CRASHTALK forum. Guy Mazairac recently said: "I commit myself to do everything again and again, so I come back to Crashnet, and it works! First, we have to try harder. Second, we have to do Crash with pleasure, because it's a wonderful trial, and we all wait to know what to do with steroids for so so long. What we all have seen today seems to work better and better, so we all have to do it again!!!" Why not log into CRASHNET today? CRASH Trial collaborators can obtain a login and password by sending an email to CRASH@Lshtm.ac.uk with the subject "CRASHNET account request".
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Mentions
to all the people listed below –
Many thanks to you and your hard working teams!
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1st patient - GREAT START Flavio
Nacul, Clínica São Vicente, Brazil 10
patients - WELL DONE Mario
Domínguez Perera, Hospital Universitario "Arnaldo Milián
Castro", Cuba |
50 patients - EXCELLENT Marcus
Green and Annie Kellins, Selly Oak Hospital, UK 100
patients - EXCEPTIONAL Patrick Plunkett, St James's Hospital, Ireland Maria de los Angeles Muñoz Sanchéz, Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocio, Spain Surakrant Yutthakasemsunt, Khon Kaen Regional Hospital, Thailand |
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New ethics approvals - hope to see your names up above soon Virginia
Rodriguez, Hospital Nacional Rosales, Colombia |
500
patients – UNIQUE Petr Svoboda and Jiri Ochmann, Research Institute for Special Surgery and Trauma in Czech Republic, have recruited 10% of all patients. Thank you! |
| The
paper based on the first 3,000 randomised patients has been published
in Current Opinion in Critical Care with the title Update on progress
in the international multicenter randomized controlled trial of corticosteroids
after significant head injury (Medical Research Council CRASH Trial). Reference: Current Opinion in Critical Care 2003;9(2):92-97 |
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CRASH
Co-ordinating Centre, LSHTM,
49-51 Bedford Square, LONDON WC1B 3DP |
