Moving Towards Common Data Elements and Core Outcome Measures in Frailty Research

With aging populations around the world, frailty is becoming more prevalent increasing the need for health systems and social systems to deliver optimal evidence based care. However, in spite of the growing number of frailty publications, high-quality evidence for decision making is often lacking. Inadequate descriptions of the populations enrolled including frailty severity and frailty conceptualization, lack of use of validated frailty assessment tools, utilization of different frailty instruments between studies, and variation in reported outcomes impairs the ability to interpret, generalize and implement the research findings. The utilization of common data elements (CDEs) and core outcome measures (COMs) in clinical trials is increasingly being adopted to address such concerns. To catalyze the development and use of CDEs and COMs for future frailty studies, the Canadian Frailty Network (http://www.cfn-nce.ca; CFN), a not-for-profit pan-Canadian nationally-funded research network, convened an international group of experts to examine the issue and plan the path forward. The meeting was structured to allow for an examination of current frailty evidence, ability to learn from other COMs and CDEs initiatives, discussions about specific considerations for frailty COMs and CDEs and finally the identification of the necessary steps for a COMs and CDEs consensus initiative going forward. It was agreed at the onset of the meeting that a statement based on the meeting would be published and herein we report the statement

OPTIMAX 2017 : radiation dose, image quality optimisation,the use of new technology in medical imaging

This year OPTIMAX settled in Oslo. After the successof previous years, we are proud to present the fourthEbook. As in previous years, the group was madeup of PhD-, MSc- and BSc students as well astutors from the seven European partner universities.Professional mix was drawn from medical physics/physics and radiography. OPTIMAX 2017 was partlyfunded by the partner universities and partly by theparticipants. Two students from South Africa and twofrom Brazil were invited by Hanze UAS (Groningen)and ESTeSL (Lisbon) summer school includedlectures and group projects in which experimentalresearch was conducted in four teams. Four research projects were performed with a focuson radiation dose optimization and image quality,namely: Possible dose reduction for pediatric patientsfor conventional radiology; Can the tube voltage belowered with the use of direct-conversion flat paneldetector system?; Impact of body size and kV in chestradiography; Quantity assessment on Image quality ofCBCT images of head phantom with implants of metaland ceramic objects.The last day of OPTIMAX 2017there was a poster session and a conference, in whichthe research teams presented their posters and oralpresentations. This book comprises of two sections, the first twochapters concern generic background informationabout international teamwork during the OPTIMAXsummerschool. The next chapters with theory on which the researchprojects were built. The second section containsthe research papers of the four research projects.Two research papers, Can the tube voltage belowered with the use of direct-conversion flat-paneldetector system? And Impact of body size and kV inchest radiography: Experimental receiver operatingcharacteristic analysis using a Multipurpose ChestPhantom “Lungman” have been accepted for the ECRconference, Vienna, 2018 as oral presentations