Neuroscience
Public release date: 21-Sep-2008
American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology
Quality assurance programs improve clinical trials
Boston – Quality assurance programs like the one at the Quality Assurance Review Center (QARC) in Worcester, Mass., strengthen the quality of clinical trials, including cooperative groups conducting National Cancer Institute-supported clinical trials, thereby improving the standard of care in cancer patients, according to a study presented September 21, 2008, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology's 50th Annual Meeting in Boston.
The Quality Assurance Program, provided by QARC at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was founded in 1980. The program's services include site credentialing to ensure that those looking to conduct clinical trials have the expertise, equipment and tools necessary to properly participate in research trials. The Quality Assurance Program also establishes benchmarks to monitor the ongoing trials and provide feedback to the physicians conducting the trials. This monitoring helps ensure that patients get the best treatments possible while making certain that the data obtained from the trials are valid and statistically significant.
From 2003 to present, QARC performed reviews on radiation therapy protocols for 6,449 patients enrolled in NCI-supported clinical trials. Cases are reviewed prior to or very early in the radiation therapy course, so that modifications in treatment can be implemented to make the treatment compliant with the study requirements. This study shows that this improved the overall quality of the clinical trial and its potential outcomes.
"Clinical trials are one the most important tools that the cancer research community has to evaluate treatments and protocols in an effort to cure cancer" T.J. FitzGerald, M.D., a study author and a radiation oncologist at QARC, said. "This study shows that a quality assurance program, like ours at QARC, can help cancer researchers conduct better clinical trials. This in turn helps patients get the best treatments possible, while recording the data in a way to help other cancer patients and further help the cancer community better understand what treatments work best."
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Neuroscience
Quality Assurance in Clinical Trials
Public release date: 21-Sep-2008
American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology
Quality assurance programs improve clinical trials
Boston – Quality assurance programs like the one at the Quality Assurance Review Center (QARC) in Worcester, Mass., strengthen the quality of clinical trials, including cooperative groups conducting National Cancer Institute-supported clinical trials, thereby improving the standard of care in cancer patients, according to a study presented September 21, 2008, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology's 50th Annual Meeting in Boston.
The Quality Assurance Program, provided by QARC at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was founded in 1980. The program's services include site credentialing to ensure that those looking to conduct clinical trials have the expertise, equipment and tools necessary to properly participate in research trials. The Quality Assurance Program also establishes benchmarks to monitor the ongoing trials and provide feedback to the physicians conducting the trials. This monitoring helps ensure that patients get the best treatments possible while making certain that the data obtained from the trials are valid and statistically significant.
From 2003 to present, QARC performed reviews on radiation therapy protocols for 6,449 patients enrolled in NCI-supported clinical trials. Cases are reviewed prior to or very early in the radiation therapy course, so that modifications in treatment can be implemented to make the treatment compliant with the study requirements. This study shows that this improved the overall quality of the clinical trial and its potential outcomes.
"Clinical trials are one the most important tools that the cancer research community has to evaluate treatments and protocols in an effort to cure cancer" T.J. FitzGerald, M.D., a study author and a radiation oncologist at QARC, said. "This study shows that a quality assurance program, like ours at QARC, can help cancer researchers conduct better clinical trials. This in turn helps patients get the best treatments possible, while recording the data in a way to help other cancer patients and further help the cancer community better understand what treatments work best."
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Modafinil And Fatigue In Depression
Lam JY, Freeman MK, & Gates ME. Modafinil augmentation for residual symptoms of fatigue in patients with a partial response to antidepressants. Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 2007 Jun;41(6):1005-12. Epub 2007 May 22. University of Alabama Health System-Birmingham,...
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- Pharmaceutical Clinical Trials: Merck
From The New York Times (06 September 2004; free registration required): Merck Says It Will Post the Results of All Drug Trials By GARDINER HARRIS Merck & Company says it will post the results of its clinical trials on drugs on a Web site run by...
- Scholarly Research On Vision Therapy
There's not much scholarly material about vision therapy, but here are links to searches in PubMed on related topics: convergence insufficiency, including a 2005 article entitled " A randomized clinical trial of treatments for convergence insufficiency...
- Brain Tumor Symposium: Bridging Precision Science And Personalized Medicine
Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center and Brain Tumor Center are pleased to host the Penn Oncology Neurosurgery Symposium. Full program overviewWhen:Friday, June 6, 2014 Where:Smilow Center for Translational Research Perelman School of Medicine at...