News – Spring 2007

MRC SUPREMO Trial has recruited the 1st EORTC patient!

The MRC SUPREMO trial (BIG 2-04, EORTC 22051_10052) has now recruited the first EORTC patient from Antoni Van Leeuwenhoekziekenhuis Hospital, Amsterdam, on 23rd April 2007.  Thirty seven EORTC centres have registered interest in participating and are in the process of establishing recruitment procedures.  We hope that these centres will be activated over the next few months. 

Date for your Diary- Annual Investigators Meeting, 8^th June 2007, Birmingham

The Annual Investigators Meeting for SUPREMO trial is on Friday June 8th 2007, Novotel, Birmingham City Centre Centre.  This will provide an update on progress of the trial within the UK, the EORTC and other international trial groups.  There is a strong educational component to the meeting and the programme (.pdf) has been submitted for CPD accreditation by the Royal College of Radiologists. 

We will reimburse delegates for travelling expenses to attend the meeting (economy train/ air fairs) and there is no fee for registration.  Please note that places may be limited therefore early registration (.pdf) is advised.

Recruitment Update

34 patients have now been randomised to the trial from 15 active sites (14 UK; 1 EORTC).  The challenge now is to reach our target accrual of 3700 patients over 4 years and we thank you for all of your support to date.  New centres are welcome to join the trial. Please contact the SUPREMO team for details.

Newsletter No. 2, April 2007

The second SUPREMO Newsletter No.2, April 2007 (.pdf) has been circulated to collaborators in the UK and EORTC.

UK centres

More than 100 sites in the UK have applied for Site Specific Assessment (SSA) and 79 of these sites have been approved to date.  50 UK sites have now completed all the preparatory procedures for opening the trial and have been issued their trial start-up packs.  Any UK centres that have still to complete the approval process or are having any problems completing the required documentation please get in touch with the trials team and we will help in any way we can.

International Collaboration

The trial has provided an exciting opportunity for International Collaboration, as featured Newsletter No.2, April 2007 (.pdf) . We now have 12 international groups outwith the UK and EORTC that have registered interest in the trial and we are in the process of finalising the contract between the University of Edinburgh and international groups intending to participate. New international groups are welcome to collaborate in the trial - please contact the SUPREMO team for details.

TACT 2 and SUPREMO

The Chief Investigators for both trials have agreed that patients can take part in both TACT2 and SUPREMO, however they can only enter one quality of life sub study. 
It should be noted that for patients entering both trials and participating in the SUPREMO cardiac study, the baseline echo has to be carried out before chemotherapy commences. 

Cardiac study – very important!

Almost a quarter of patients randomised to date have also consented to participate in the cardiac sub-study.
The cardiac sub-study will use b-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) to identify patients that have developed or who are at risk of developing cardiac toxicity following chemotherapy and radiotherapy for breast cancer. It is vital that we get as many centres as possible to participate in this study as it addresses two very important issues:

• what are the short and long term risks of cardiac toxicity with different therapeutic approaches?
• can BNP be used to identify people that have developed toxicity and more importantly can it be used as an early marker of cardiac toxicity before symptoms develop?

Costs of analysing samples will be extremely high if we cannot recruit high enough numbers of patients into this sub-study therefore we need your to help to make this study a success.