NI led Clinical Research Trial: CLEAR meets Recruitment Target

October 10, 2023

The Northern Ireland led CLEAR Trial closed to recruitment last week after meeting their recruitment target of 288 patients. The last patient was recruited by the NI Clinical Research Network Respiratory Research Team based at Belfast City Hospital.

The CLEAR Trial is a multicentre 2×2 factorial randomised open label trial in bronchiectasis, which recruited across 22 sites in the UK including three NI sites. Belfast recruited the first patient to the CLEAR Trial in 2018 and were the top recruiters throughout the study recruiting 67 patients in total with an original target of 25.

The trial recruited well across NI, Western Trust recruited 25 patients meeting their target of 25, and Southern Trust recruited 38 patients exceeding their target of 30.

The trial was funded by NIHR, sponsored by BHSCT with Chief Investigator Professor Stuart Elborn, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Medicine Health and Life Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast and Lead Applicant Physiotherapist, Professor Judy Bradley Director of the NI Clinical Research facility and IREACH Health at Queen’s University Belfast.

Find out more about the CLEAR Trial here: https://nictu.hscni.net/clear-trial/ Twitter: https://nictu.hscni.net/clear-trial/

Michelle Spence from the BHSCT Research team said, “The success of the trial is due to the massive team effort across all sites. We have had so many co-ordinators recruiting to the study over the past five years, a special well done to current coordinators; Abitha Nair, Esther Ramsey, Denise Cosgrove, Kathryn Ferguson, Jude Gallagher and the rest of the co-ordinators who have helped along the way.”

The CLEAR Trial team sent their congratulations to teams for their recruitment. Here are some of the Belfast team enjoying a lovely box of celebratory cookies, sent by the team.

Well done team! Showing once again NI can recruit consistently as a region to clinical research trials.

Keep up to date with all our latest research news on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/NICRNCoordCentr

By Emma Byrne