BMJ  2003;327:1349 (6 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7427.1349

Letter

Non-commercial randomised clinical trials need money for meetings and travel expenses

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—Chalmers et al highlight from their survey of non-commercial randomised trials the challenges faced by researchers seeking funding for trials addressing issues that are not of interest to industry.1

For any large multicentre clinical trial to reach its target accrual, the clinical research community must be committed to the trial at the earliest stages of its development. Current financing of peer reviewed trials by the Department of Health and the Medical Research Council begins only once a full proposal is approved. However, costs are incurred in the process of developing a full proposal, particularly by national meetings to discuss and develop the detailed protocol and the administrative support for revisions of the text.

Although much of the communication between clinicians can be done by email, meetings of clinicians face to face are needed to debate the research question and practicalities for a clinical trial. In a trial supported by industry . . . [Full text of this article]

Ian H Kunkler, consultant

Western General Hospital, Edinburgh EH4 2XU I.Kunkler@ed.ac.uk


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Relevant Article

Descriptive survey of non-commercial randomised controlled trials in the United Kingdom, 1980-2002
Iain Chalmers, Cath Rounding, and Kate Lock
BMJ 2003 327: 1017. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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