Recruitment

1
Funded by the MRC
AUTOLOGOUS CHONDROCYTE TRANSPLANTATION/IMPLANTATIO
N VERSUS EXISTING TREATMENTS
ISCRCTN 48911177
NEWSLETTER October 2006 Issue 11

• Recruitment
• Recruitment has passed the 100 mark
• and now stands at 106 patients. As you
• can see below, several new centres
• have recently joined. We were
• fortunate to have a stand at the BOA
• conference in Glasgow last week to help
• promote the trial and distribute details
• of each participating centre. The major
• recruitment challenge is finding eligible
• patients and at a local level it would be
• helpful if every centre can think of
• ways to widen referral channels, e.g. by
• giving talks about ACTIVE to GPs and
• consultants (power-point presentation
• available on request).

Additional procedures By now some ACTIVE patients
have had their 1 year follow-up and about 5
patients have had an additional procedure since
their trial treatment. Co-ordinators have been
sent a special form for recording any additional
procedures which might for example include an
arthroscopy to shave the periosteum / membrane,
or, as in a couple of cases a uni-compartmental
knee replacement.
A note on Intention to treat Sometimes
additional defects are only discovered at the
time of surgery and when this happens the planned
trial treatment may not be appropriate for the
patient. If this happens the patient stays in the
trial and is followed up in the normal way so
that the data can be included and analysed as
part of the intended treatment group.
6th Oswestry Cartilage Symposium We are all set
for the conference on 9th-10th November with an
exciting line up of speakers and the course
dinner to look forward to at The Walls restaurant
in Oswestry. As you can see on the enclosed
programme we have a slot for ACTIVE centres to
contribute to the discussion at 2.40 pm on the
Thursday. If you havent yet registered please
complete the enclosed form. Bursaries are
available to help support ACTIVE assessors
co-ordinators to attend. Erica Wilkinson can help
book accommodation. Look forward to seeing you
there. Best wishes, Heather heatherj.smith_at_rjah
.nhs.uk
Number of patients randomised
DMEC Meeting Our Data Monitoring Ethics
Committee chaired by Prof. Hamish Simpson met
last month. Generally the DMEC was satisfied with
the trial and happy for it to continue. A more
realistic recruitment target was proposed for
recruiting 600 patients over 5 years instead of 3
years. This target will still require the monthly
recruitment rate to more than double from
approx. 5 patients to 12 patients a month.
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Study day for ACTIVE assessors Im very aware
that we still havent had a special study day
for ACTIVE assessors. If you are an assessor and
would like to attend a study day at Oswestry
please let me know and I will arrange a date for
this summer. If you think two trips to
Oswestry is too much in one year then I urge
you to at least attend the conference as there
will be much going on of interest to you. I
look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes,
Heather Heatherj.smith_at_rjah.nhs.uk