Issue 11 NEWSLETTER February 2000
 
Growing every day 
It's less than a year since the CRASH trial was launched
But we are already one of the largest randomised controlled trials of corticosteroids in head injury ever conducted. Already there are hundreds of nurses and doctors working together on the trial with the number growing every day. Even before our first birthday we are up on our feet and starting to run!

With many junior hospital staff in the UK changing hospitals this month, now would be a good time to present the trial to new doctors and nurses who are not already familiar with it. Hopefully by now all Lead Doctors and Lead Nurses at UK centres will have received an updated CRASH PowerPoint presentation on disk and some protocol summaries. If you would like more materials, please do get in touch with the CRASH Co-ordinating Centre.

EURO-NEURO 2000
Guy Mazairac has taken the trial forward significantly since he received ethics committee approval in December 1999. At the beginning of February he organised for CRASH posters and protocols to be exhibited at Euro-Neuro 2000. The meeting was attended by 1,000 anaesthetists, intensivists, neurosurgeons and specialist nurses from Europe and around the world, hosted in Genk - Belgium. The meeting generated a lot of interest in the trial and we hope that soon many more centres will be applying to participate.
Forthcoming CRASH meetings
There are two UK CRASH Trial meetings planned for the near future…
A Lead Nurses Meeting is being organised by Gabby Lomas, Lead Nurse at Hope Hospital, for nurses working on the trial in the North of England. This will be held on the 4 April 2000, 4 – 6.30pm at Hope Hospital.
Tony Bleetman, A&E Consultant at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital and Jonathan Wasserberg, Neurosurgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, are organising a ‘Birmingham Area and Around’ CRASH Meeting. This will be held at the end of March/beginning of April.
These meetings will provide opportunities to feed back information on Trial progress, to share experiences and to find out from collaborators how trial procedures might still be improved. The meetings will be followed by a meal. We look forward to seeing many of you there.
World News

Jiri Ochmann Hat-trick! In Brno, Czech Republic, Jiri Ochmann scored a CRASH hat-trick at the end of January when he randomised patient number 300 after having randomised patients 100 and 200 last year!

Stephan Trenkler from the Reimann Hospital, Slovakia has recently started six-month patient follow-ups. Meanwhile in Brno, Petr Svoboda and Ilona Kantorova have followed-up nearly 90% of patients at six months by postal questionnaire.

 New centres recruiting this month
  • Kassim Ali and Penny Yates at Bury General Hospital, Lancashire
  • Jill Dixon and Pramod Luthra at Oldham Royal Infirmary, Lancashire
  • Jan Bürger at Hospital Pribram, Czech Republic 
  • David McPhee and Aaron Pennell at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Essex
  • Marcus Green, Orthopaedic Surgeon at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham
CRASH Trial Co-ordinator, Nin Ritchie

CRASH Co-ordinating Centre, FREEPOST LON 14211, LONDON WC1N 1BR

Tel: + 44 (0)20 7299 4684 Fax: + 44 (0)20 7299 4663 email: CRASH@lshtm.ac.uk

Back to Home Page