Application of Incident Command Structure to clinical trial management in the academic setting: principles and lessons learned

Background Clinical trial success depends on appropriate management, but practical guidance to trial organisation and planning is lacking. The Incident Command System (ICS) is the ‘gold standard’ management system developed for managing diverse operations in major incident and public health arenas. It enables effective and flexible management through integration of personnel, procedures, resources, and communications within a common hierarchical organisational structure. Conventional ICS organisation consists of five function modules: Command, Planning, Operations, Logistics, and Finance/Administration. Large clinical trials will require a separate Regulatory Administrative arm, and an Information arm, consisting of dedicated data management and information technology staff. We applied ICS principles to organisation and management of the Prehospital Use of Plasma in Traumatic Haemorrhage (PUPTH) trial. This trial was a multidepartmental, multiagency, randomised clinical trial investigating prehospital administration of thawed plasma on mortality and coagulation response in severely injured trauma patients. We describe the ICS system as it would apply to large clinical trials in general, and the benefits, barriers, and lessons learned in utilising ICS principles to reorganise and coordinate the PUPTH trial. Results Without a formal trial management structure, early stages of the trial were characterised by inertia and organisational confusion. Implementing ICS improved organisation, coordination, and communication between multiple agencies and service groups, and greatly streamlined regulatory compliance administration. However, unfamiliarity of clinicians with ICS culture, conflicting resource allocation priorities, and communication bottlenecks were significant barriers. Conclusions ICS is a flexible and powerful organisational tool for managing large complex clinical trials. However, for successful implementation the cultural, psychological, and social environment of trial participants must be accounted for, and personnel need to be educated in the basics of ICS

Prehospital use of plasma in traumatic hemorrhage (The PUPTH Trial): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background Severe traumatic injury and haemorrhagic shock are frequently associated with disruptions of coagulation function (such as trauma-induced coagulopathy TIC) and activation of inflammatory cascades. These pathologies may be exacerbated by current standard of care resuscitation protocols. Observational studies suggest early administration of plasma to severely-injured haemorrhaging patients may correct TIC, minimise inflammation, and improve survival. The proposed randomised clinical trial will evaluate the clinical effectiveness of pre-hospital plasma administration compared with standard- of-care crystalloid resuscitation in severely-injured patients with major traumatic haemorrhage. Methods/design This is a prospective, randomized, open-label, non-blinded trial to determine the effect of pre-hospital administration of thawed plasma (TP) on mortality, morbidity, transfusion requirements, coagulation, and inflammatory response in severely-injured bleeding trauma patients. Two hundred and ten eligible adult trauma patients will be randomised to receive either two units of plasma, to be administered in-field, vsstandard of care normal saline (NS). Main analyses will compare subjects allocated to TP to those allocated to NS, on an intention-to-treat basis. Primary outcome measure is all-cause 30-day mortality. Secondary outcome measures include coagulation and lipidomic/pro-inflammatory marker responses, volume of resuscitation fluids (crystalloid, colloid) and blood products administered, and major hospital outcomes (e.g. incidence of MSOF, length of ICU stay, length of hospital stay). Discussion This study is part of a US Department of Defense (DoD)-funded multi-institutional investigation, conducted independently of, but in parallel with, the University of Pittsburgh and University of Denver. Demonstration of significant reductions in mortality and coagulopathic/inflammatory-related morbidities as a result of pre-hospital plasma administration would be of considerable clinical importance for the management of haemorrhagic shock in both civilian and military populations. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02303964 on 28 November 201

Chandra Grating Spectroscopy of the X-ray Binary 4U 1700-37 in a Flaring State

Chandra X-ray Observatory grating spectra of the supergiant X-ray Binary 4U 1700-37 reveal emission lines from hydrogen and helium-like S, Si, Mg, and Ne in the 4-13 A range. The spectrum also shows fluorescent lines from S, Si, and a prominent Fe K alpha line at 1.94 A. The lines contribute to the previously unaccounted "soft excess" in the flux in this range at orbital phi~0.7. The X-ray source was observed during intermittent flaring, and the strengths of the lines vary with the source state. The widths of the lines (FWHM approximately 1000-2000 km/s) can result from either Compton scattering or Doppler shifts. Power spectra of the hard X-rays show red noise and the soft X-rays and lines show in addition quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) and a power-spectral break. Helium-like triplets of Si and Mg suggest that the gas is not in a pure photoionization equilibrium. We discuss whether resonant scattering could affect the line ratios or whether a portion of the wind may be heated to temperatures T~10^6 K.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures (4 in color), submitted to The Astrophysical Journa

Reporting animal research:Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0

Improving the reproducibility of biomedical research is a major challenge. Transparent and accurate reporting is vital to this process; it allows readers to assess the reliability of the findings and repeat or build upon the work of other researchers. The ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) were developed in 2010 to help authors and journals identify the minimum information necessary to report in publications describing in vivo experiments. Despite widespread endorsement by the scientific community, the impact of ARRIVE on the transparency of reporting in animal research publications has been limited. We have revised the ARRIVE guidelines to update them and facilitate their use in practice. The revised guidelines are published alongside this paper. This explanation and elaboration document was developed as part of the revision. It provides further information about each of the 21 items in ARRIVE 2.0, including the rationale and supporting evidence for their inclusion in the guidelines, elaboration of details to report, and examples of good reporting from the published literature. This document also covers advice and best practice in the design and conduct of animal studies to support researchers in improving standards from the start of the experimental design process through to publication

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201