Research activity is ongoing in most clinical areas within the Trust.  Please visit our A to Z of clinical services.  For further details of research expertise available within any of these clinical areas please contact the plh-tr.RD-Office@nhs.net

Current research activity and infrastructure in the Trust includes the following major achievements:

The Neurology research group, led by Professor John Zajicek, together with researchers in the Universities of Plymouth and Aberdeen, have been awarded £2million by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) to advance clinical trial methods for neurodegenerative diseases. These diseases, which include Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Motor Neurone Diseases - pose major challenges. Considerable resources have been targeted at slowing disease progression, yet no treatments are available that achieve convincingly that goal. A fundamental requirement for therapeutics development in most neurological diseases is innovative trial designs that will allow readouts of efficacy and adverse events over reasonable time periods, despite the chronic nature of the disorders. In pursuit of this goal, the Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases Network (DeNDRoN) Methodology Special Interest Group has identified four aspects, common to clinical trials of neurodegenerative diseases, requiring urgent investigation: a) rating scale outcomes; b) biomarker outcomes; c) modelling, statistics, health economics; d) trial design.

The Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit has been recognised as a high quality research centre and registered as such through a UK Clinical Research Collaboration CTU registration process.  Registration is designed to improve the quality and quantity of available expertise to carry out clinical trials in the UK and means that patients can be assured of the excellence of clinical studies conducted from the Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit. It also means that more clinical trials will be run from the Unit, offering greater opportunity to take part in the best research.

The Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit is currently working on a range of clinical trials, including:

• The CUPID study (Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease), which is evaluating whether THC, one of many cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant, might slow the development of disability in multiple sclerosis;
  
• The SWIMS project (South West Impact on Multiple Sclerosis), which is evaluating the impact of multiple sclerosis in Devon and Cornwall and in which more than 1,000 local people are taking part;
  
• Two cancer studies into mantle cell lymphoma;
  
• A study evaluating the benefits of cranial osteopathy to children with cerebral palsy.

The EarlyBird Study is a 12 year research programme that is observing the health and lifestyle of a cohort of normal healthy children. The aim is to help parents and teachers understand the preventable factors in childhood that are responsible for the current epidemics of diabetes and heart disease.

Without such knowledge, rational attempts at prevention are not possible. Findings from the study are already helping inform the public about the early causes of diabetes and heart disease in their children and how they, as individuals, might avoid them.

Now entering its tenth year, EarlyBird has already made a substantial media impact - BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, Case Notes, Frontiers, Am I Normal?, Time Magazine, The Economist, New Scientist, The Times, Daily Telegraph and Observer on Sunday. The study has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles in top medical journals such as Diabetes, Pediatrics, BMJ, International Journal of Obesity.

The South West Peninsula Clinical Research Collaboration (SWPRC), a partnership between the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry (PCMD), the Strategic Health Authority, the NHS Trusts in the area and the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, were successful in their bid to NIHR to establish the Peninsula Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care a five year pilot CLAHRC in the South West and were awarded in 2008 a £10 million grant from the NIHR matched by another £10 million from a number of other sources that make up the partnership. The Director is Professor Stuart Logan based at the Exeter campus of the PCMD.

Locality leads are also being appointed at the various participating sites. The leads here at PHNT are Professor Robert Freeman and Dr Mark Perry.

The aims of PenCLAHRC are:

1. Through Peninsula CLAHRC research and educational activity, to further embed and fuel the partnership between the NHS and academia, building research capacity in applied health research and implementation.

2. To treble the partnership’s involvement in applied health research to enable us to become a major sustainable contributor to this field for the future.

3 To promote engagement and involvement in research that reflects real clinical concerns, contributing to the creation of a research receptive culture in the local NHS.

This agenda will be driven by a new process called ‘Engagement by Design’ whereby health care professionals, service users, and other interested parties will be involved at all stages of the research. Full details of this process and other information about how PenCLAHRC is helping to facilitate research in the region are to be found on their website: http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/

The haematology department has a long established clinical research into malignant haematological disorders.  The PlymouthLymphoma Trials Unit (PLTU) is a non-profit making organisation under the direction of Dr Simon Rule which as well as leading a number of national clinical trials also provides help, support and information for patients and healthcare professionals throughout the UK.  There are now almost 250 patients in these various trials, with biological material collected at diagnosis.

A collaboration between the Health Services Research Unit in Aberdeen, the department of Urogynaecology in Manchester and the Plymouth Urogynaecology research team led by Professor Bob Freeman has been successful in obtaining an HTA grant of £2.6 million to undertake randomised controlled trials to evaluate the outcome of new and conventional surgery for pelvic organ prolapse (PROSPECT: PROlapse surgery: pragmatic evaluation and randomised controlled trials). This will hopefully answer many of the questions regarding the efficacy and safety of new vaginal mesh procedures.