Aspirin trial to examine if it can stop cancer returning

The world's largest clinical trial to examine whether aspirin can prevent cancers returning has begun in the UK.

About 11,000 people who have had early bowel, breast, prostate, stomach and oesophageal cancer will be involved.

Uncertainty about the drug's possible anti-cancer qualities has led to fierce medical debate in recent years.

If it is proven to work, scientists say it would be "game-changing", by providing a cheap and effective way to help more patients survive.

During the study, funded by the charity Cancer Research UK and the NIHR - the research arm of the NHS - patients will take a tablet every day for five years.

Researchers will compare groups of patients taking different doses of aspirin with people taking dummy (placebo) pills and check for any recurrences of cancer.

Dr Fiona Reddington from Cancer Research UK said: "The trial is especially exciting as cancers that recur are often harder to treat so finding a cheap and effective way to prevent this is potentially game-changing for patients."

The trial will run across 100 UK centres, involving patients who are having or have had treatment for early cancer, and will last up to 12 years.

But scientists warn that aspirin is not suitable for everyone and should not be used without medical advice.

Taking the drug every day comes with a serious health warning as it can cause side effects such as ulcers and bleeding from the stomach, or even the brain.

View more here on BBC/Health

Writing competition for International Clinical Trials Day

Want to win an iPad Air and get your story in the Irish Times? The HRB Trials Methodology Research Network (HRB-TMRN) is running a national writing competition to mark this year's International Clinical Trials Day which takes place on 20 May.

This competition is open to everyone wishing to provide a perspective on clinical trial research, including patients, clinicians, researchers, academia and industry.

It must be written for a general audience and no more that 800 words in length.

• The deadline for submission is Wednesday 6 May 5.00pm.
• Entries should be sent to hrb-tmrn@nuigalway.ie with 'IT COMPETITION' in the subject line.

The winning entry will appear in the Irish Times Health and Family Supplement on 19 May 2015 (subject to editorial approval).

Full competition details are available from the HRB-TMRN website 

PubMed Health - new database of Systematic Reviews added to our Collections

About PubMed Health:

PubMed Health provides information for consumers and clinicians on prevention and treatment of diseases and conditions.

PubMed Health specializes in reviews of clinical effectiveness research, with easy-to-read summaries for consumers as well as full technical reports. Clinical effectiveness research finds answers to the question “What works?” in medical and health care.

PubMed Health Information:

PubMed Health is based on systematic reviews of clinical trials. These clinical effectiveness reviews can show what treatments and prevention methods have been proven to work—and what remains unknown.

PubMed Health provides summaries and full texts of selected systematic reviews in one place. The reviews were generally published or updated from 2003. There is also information for consumers and clinicians based on those reviews.

A search on PubMed Health runs simultaneously in PubMed. A filter is used to identify all the indexed scientific articles at the NLM that might be systematic reviews. This search includes articles from before 2003.

PubMed Health is a service provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).

Click here to link to PubMed Health in the Library Catalogue

Pioneering Ebola clinical trials to start next month

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) will host the first clinical trials of Ebola treatments in three treatment centres in West Africa, the international medical humanitarian organisation has announced.

The separate trials, which are aimed at quickly finding an effective therapy for the disease that has so far resulted in 5,000 deaths in the current outbreak in the region, will be led by three different research partners.

The French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) will lead a trial using antiviral drug favipiravir in Guéckédou, Guinea; the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) will lead a trial of convalescent whole blood and plasma therapy at the Donka Ebola centre in Conakry, Guinea; and the University of Oxford will lead, on behalf of the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC), a Wellcome Trust-funded trial of the antiviral drug brincidofovir at a site yet to be determined.

The World Health Organ-ization (WHO) and health authorities of the affected countries are also taking part in this collaborative effort.

The trials’ protocols are in the final stages of development and are designed with a simple target of 14-day survival and with broad inclusion criteria.

The main principles and designs have been shared with the respective countries’ ethical authorities, with the goal of starting the first trials next month.

Initial results could be available in February.

The two drugs, brincidofovir and favipiravir, were selected from WHO’s shortlist of potential Ebola treatments after review of safety and efficacy profiles, product availability, and ease of administration to patients, MSF said.

View more information here

Ebola vaccine trial begins

A trial of an experimental vaccine against the Ebola virus is to begin in Oxford.

The first of 60 healthy volunteers will be injected with the vaccine.  It contains only a small portion of genetic material from the virus, so it cannot cause the disease.

Normally it would take years of human trials before a completely new vaccine was approved for use.  But such is the urgency of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa that this experimental vaccine is being fast tracked at an astonishing rate.

If the trials are successful, it could be used to immunise health workers in affected areas by the end of the year.  By then, around 10,000 doses should be available.

The vaccine is being developed by GlaxoSmithKline and the US National Institutes of Health.

Blood tests from the volunteers will reveal the extent of their antibody response within two to four weeks.

Further volunteers will be given the vaccine in Africa next month and there are trials in the United States of a different formulation - both vaccines could be used if they prove safe and effective.

Promising results from animal studies were published earlier this month.

The United States has said it will send 3,000 troops to West Africa to build treatment clinics and to train health workers in how to halt the spread of the deadly virus.

The official death toll now stands at more than 2,400 people, although the outbreak may have killed many times that number.

View more here on BBC/Health

NUI Galway Information Evening to Highlight Clinical Research

The HRB Clinical Research Facility, Galway (CRFG) is holding a public information evening on Tuesday, 20 May from 5-7pm in the Clinical Sciences Institute, NUI Galway (on the grounds of Galway University Hospital).

The information evening will highlight how ongoing clinical research studies may lead to significant medical breakthroughs and the development of new treatments. It is also an opportunity to find out more about current research projects and to meet current CRFG staff.

Professor Martin O’Donnell, Acting Director, HRB CRFG, said: “Clinical research involves a collaboration between clinicians, patients, volunteers and research staff. Therefore, public engagement is an essential part of clinical research. Over the past six years, the HRB CRFG has developed a strong clinical research group, conducting studies across a wide spectrum of medical conditions. We strive to conduct cutting-edge research, which adheres to the highest standards.”

The HRB Clinical Research Facility, Galway is a joint venture between NUI Galway, Galway University Hospitals and West Northwest Hospital Group. 

Work has begun on the new Clinical Research Facility and Translational Research Facility (CRF-TRF) building located on the grounds of Galway University Hospital. The building is due to be completed in January 2015. The CRF-TRF will facilitate cutting-edge medical research. This facility will form part of the Irish Network of Clinical Research Facilities which will conduct state of the art clinical research in a variety of clinical areas, such as Cardiology, Cancer, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, etc.

So, what is a Clinical Trial?  
A Clinical Trial is a research study to answer specific questions about a new medical treatment (medicine/drug, medical device, new therapies, vaccines), or new ways of using known treatments. Clinical Trials (also called medical research and research studies) are used to determine whether such new treatments are both safe and effective. Carefully conducted Clinical Trials are the fastest and safest way to find new and effective treatments that work in people.

The CRFG Information Evening is free to attend, however advance registration is requested by emailing  crfg@nuigalway.ie

View full Press Release here