Spin-offs of a multidisciplinary project: Small Aneurysm Trial

Prof. Janet Powell
Medical Director - Research and Education Unit.
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

14th November, 12.30pm room A401, Engineering

Abstract

In 1989 two vascular surgeons, an epidemiologist, a health economist and a vascular biologist met at Kings Cross Station for breakfast to design a clinical trial. The question we wanted to answer was whether surgery for small swellings of the main blood vessel (aortic aneurysms) was a waste of time. By 2002 this question has been answered. However, the careful phenotyping of patients enrolled in the trial has permitted a variety of other questions about measurement errors, imaging modalities, role of blood pressure forces in aneurysm rupture, genes predisposing to death or aneurysm growth and analysis of repeated measurements of a growing phenomenon in the face of truncation by surgery or death. The trial also has formed the basis of evaluating new technologies in endovascular aortic grafts in a follow-on trial.

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