Other Research

I-WIP

The i-WIP Collaborative Group was established in 2013 and an international group of researchers who conducted trials on the effect of diet and physical activity based interventions in pregnancy. The group’s main aim was to deliver an Individual Participant Data meta-analysis addressing the question of the lifestyle-based intervention’s effect on gestational weight gain, maternal and offspring outcomes.

IPPIC

The IPPIC (International Prediction of Pregnancy Complications) collaborative network consists of individual participant data (IPD) of over 3 million pregnancies. This large global repository originally funded by the NIHR HTA (National Institute of Health Research Health Technology Assessment) to predict pre-eclampsia, includes 14 UK and 66 international datasets. It has since received further funding from Sands (Stillbirth and Neonatal Deaths) charity to predict stillbirth, NHMRC (Australian National Health and Medical Research Council) to predict preterm birth and HTA to predict fetal growth restriction and its complications.

SALVO

The SALVO study was led by our Centre and published in 2017 – it was the largest ever randomised controlled trial on the use of cell salvage in obstetrics. Over 3000 women across the UK were randomised to either receive cell salvage in the event of bleeding in childbirth, or standard of care. The primary objective was to find out if routine cell salvage use has the potential to reduce the need for donor blood transfusion.

To find out more and read about the results, see https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/content/signal-00592/cell-salvage-during-c-section-doesnt-reduce-blood-transfusions or download our SALVO newsletter

COGS

Core Outcome Sets in Gynaecological Conditions (COGS).

Although checklists exist for the reporting of clinical trials, core outcome sets (COS) differ because they are a disease-specific agreed set of outcomes that are established as a reporting standard minimum for all relevant clinical trials. The aim of COS is to ensure that studies of a condition all report the same, valid outcomes which will allow future data synthesis for development of clinical guidelines and will also prevent selective outcome reporting. Ultimately, this will mean that all studies which are conducted into a condition will produce results that are not only useful for interpretation of that trial but can also contribute to meta-analyses and the overall assessment of interventions. This will make results more valuable, more meaningful in comparisons and more likely to influence improvements in policy and practice.

The aim of this project is to develop core outcome sets for the management of gynaecological conditions (COGS). These include heavy menstrual bleeding, fertility sparing surgery for cervical cancer, endometrial cancer and endometrial hyperplasia.

In order to get a refined and robust set of core outcomes, the COGS will be formed of four parts. These include, systematic reviews, qualitative workshops, Delphi surveys and final consensus meetings.

A video explaining Core Outcome Sets can be found here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kghwCDOragU