In September 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) released new guidance on preventative treatment for tuberculosis (TB). Thanks to new evidence from two randomised controlled clinical trials, the WHO now recommends that contacts of people with multidrug-resistant TB take six months of daily levofloxacin. In this episode of the Trial Talk podcast, we find out more about the TB-CHAMP and VQUIN trials. We also learn how the teams came together to combine their data and strengthen their evidence, using new statistical methodologies developed at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL. The episode features interviews with Anneke Hesseling, Principal Investigator for TB-CHAMP, based at Stellenbosch University, and Trinh Duong, based at the MRC CTU at UCL, the trial statistician for TB-CHAMP and lead for the combined data analysis with VQUIN.

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9/23/2024

Optimisation immunotherapy clinical trials investigate ways of reducing the intensity of immunotherapy cancer treatment. This could be beneficial for patients’ quality of life. But these trials can be challenging to run, as patients may be concerned about the impact that reducing the intensity of treatment could have on the cancer. This episode of the Trial Talk podcast focuses on the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL’s OPTIC study, which explores how people with cancer feel about taking part in optimisation immunotherapy trials. Clinical Fellow Sophie Merrick discusses the main barriers that patients face and recommendations to address them. Resources: •OPTIC study page: www.mrcctu.ucl.ac.uk/studies/all-st…/refine/optic/ •OPTIC results paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41416-024-02756-x.pdf •REFINE podcast episode: on.soundcloud.com/Fe3C76csHkgCg2or5 For questions or feedback on the series, message us at mrcctu.engage@ucl.ac.uk For more information and to access the transcript: bit.ly

0

6/18/2024

The MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL is committed to actively involving patients and the public in our trials. All our Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) work is overseen by our PPI Group, made up of MRC CTU staff alongside seven patient representatives, with a wide range of experience in different areas. In this episode of the Trial Talk podcast, two members of the Unit’s PPI Group, Richard Stephens and Ian Newsome, discuss what PPI means to them; how they got involved as patient representatives in clinical research; and how the MRC CTU at UCL embeds PPI into our trials. Resources: • Our PPI group: www.mrcctu.ucl.ac.uk/patients-publi…our-ppi-group/ • PPI resources: www.mrcctu.ucl.ac.uk/patients-publi…ppi-resources/ • Testing Treatments: Better Research for Better Healthcare (book): www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK66204/ For more information and to access the transcript: bit.ly/3KlKtak For questions or feedback on the podcast series, message us at mrcctu.engage@ucl.ac.uk.

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5/29/2024

An estimand is a description of the research question a trial seeks to answer, which can help researchers better understand how their study should be designed and analysed. Estimands also provide a clear way to communicate treatment effects to different stakeholders. This episode of the Trial Talk podcast features Principal Research Fellow Brennan Kahan, exploring how triallists could benefit from using estimands. Brennan also discusses his recent paper which aims to demystify new guidance on the use of estimands. Resources: •The estimands framework: a primer on the ICH E9(R1): www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-076316 •'We must let the research question drive study methods' opinion piece: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9908044/ •Estimands in cluster-randomized trials: choosing analyses that answer the right question: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9908044/

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4/25/2024

In the first episode of our new Trial Talk series, Hanif Esmail and Conor Tweed take over the microphones to interview Andrew Nunn and Sarah Meredith, who have both recently retired from the Unit, having spent a combined total of 92 years working in the field of tuberculosis (TB). As we celebrate Andrew and Sarah’s long and accomplished careers, we’ll dive into the history of TB clinical trials and muse on the future of TB research. For more information and to access the transcript: www.mrcctu.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-stor…inical-trials/ Check out our earlier podcast episodes about TB trials, also featuring Andrew Nunn: • Trial-talk-podcast – The-stream2-trial-how-should-we-treat-multi-drug-resistant-tuberculosis • Trial-talk-podcast – Andrew-nunn-talks-medical-statistics-tb-and-algerian-nomads-part-1 • Trial-talk-podcast – Andrew-nunn-talks-medical-statistics-tb-and-algerian-nomads-part-2 For questions or feedback on the series, message us at mrcctu.engage@ucl.ac.uk As a listener, you

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1/26/2024

Centre for Oral Health and Performance We promote oral health in sport to enhance the performance, overall health and wellbeing of athletes. We engage in high-quality, cross-cutting research. We collaborate with a wide range of clinical and academic disciplines and connecting with athletes, sport and exercise medicine/science professionals, sport organisations, sport funders, policy makers and industry. We have extensive expertise in both clinical research and research synthesis (systematic reviews). As part of UCL, we collaborate with a wide range of clinical and academic disciplines and particularly closely with the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health (ISEH). Furthermore, microbiology and materials science research at UCL Eastman is world-leading. We use these skills to design high quality research to investigate the issues of oral health and to develop effective interventions.

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8/14/2018

Ian White joined the MRC Clinical Trials Unit in January 2017 as Professor of Statistical Methods for Medicine. He has worked as a biostatistician in clinical trials, observational studies and meta-analyses, taking a particular interest in developing better methods for statistical modelling, handling missing data and treatment changes, and writing software. In this inaugural lecture he describes his journey to UCL in a non-technical way using some of his favourite graphs.

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11/9/2017