April is Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month. Where can cancer develop in the head and neck? There are more than 30 areas where cancer develop (1) Mouth, including tongue, roof of mouth, back of throat, tonsils, lips Voice box (larynx) Saliva g...
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PANDOS is an international, prospective, observational cohort study. Prospective means data are collected going forward. Observational means that data about study participants are being collected during routine procedures. Nothing about the care of t...
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Friends of ANCHOR is a local charity dedicated to improving cancer and haematology care in the North of Scotland. Research is a key part of Friends of ANCHOR’s commitment to patients. It plays an important part in driving forward cancer and haematol...
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What is RSV? RSV stands for respiratory syncytial virus. RSV is a common respiratory virus that infects the lungs and breathing passages. People most frequently associate RSV with the risks for young children, but it can also be very dangerous for ol...
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Non-tuberculous mycobacteria, or NTM, are a group of bacteria that cause rare lung infections. NTM can cause health problems for people with no pre-existing condition, but it’s more likely to affect people with an underlying lung problem, such as bro...
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The IBIS-II Prevention study was done to establish if Anastrozole - an oestrogen lowering drug –– could prevent breast cancer in postmenopausal women with a high or moderate risk of getting this disease. NHS Grampian was one of the 149 centres worldw...
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I am a speech and language therapist with a specialist interest in communication difficulties caused by stroke. One such difficulty is aphasia. People with aphasia have problems expressing themselves. It can affect understanding and reading as well a...
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The North of Scotland Research Ethics Service runs 2 Committees which are made up of volunteers, these volunteers are designated as Expert Members and Lay Members. Expert Members are registered Health Care Professionals or work within the research en...
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A new study for head and neck cancer patients receiving radiotherapy has opened in Aberdeen. It is looking at a new medicine called NG11-2 from the pharmaceutical company VasoDynamics Ltd. NG11-2 is given as a mouthwash to people before receiving rad...
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NHS Grampian is one of the pilot sites taking part in the UK Antimicrobial Registry (UKAR) Study. The UKAR Study is a collaboration between the Epidemiology Group of the University of Aberdeen, the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC)...
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The Recovery trial is a large-scale study that was launched in March 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The goal of the recovery trial is to identify effective treatments for Covid-19. It started with testing a range of existing drugs that h...
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The BADBIR is a clinical study that monitors the long-term safety of drugs used to treat Psoriasis. There are over 18k participants in the study and 110k follow-ups entered nationally. The study commenced in 2007 with a planned completion of July 202...
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Aberdeen is taking part in the E.mbrace Study. This study is researching a new vaccine which hopes to prevent complications of urinary infections in adults aged 60 and over. This research is carried out as a randomised clinical trial, which means par...
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Colorectal cancer, also called bowel cancer, affects the colon or rectum and is one of the most prevalent cancer types in the UK (1). In the UK, over 268,000 people have been diagnosed with this disease, with around 43,000 new diagnoses annually (2)....
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The ORION 4 study aims to find out if a new medicine safely lowers the risk of heart attacks and strokes in certain people. People who have already had one of these conditions, or who have had an operation or procedure to treat blocked-up arteries ca...
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The HoT study is for patients with low risk thyroid cancer. Low risk means that the cancer is small or medium sized, has not spread to other organs and there is a very high chance of curing it. The thyroid is a gland in the throat that produces chemi...
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Every year NHS Grampian Endowments provide funds to local research projects. These funds are for smaller or pilot projects and need to benefit NHS Grampian or its patients. This year the maximum amount of funding per application was increased to £20,...
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Rare Disease Day 28th February Rare Disease day is an opportunity to raise the awareness for people living with a Rare Disease. Some 300 million people worldwide are affected with a rare disease. More information about Rare Disease Day is available o...
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High Risk Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is the main cause of cervical cancer. In the UK, cervical cancer affects >3000 women annually. The current available vaccines, used in the school immunisation programme, prevent HPV infections but they do not c...
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The ACHIEVE study is looking at a medicine for patients with kidney disease who receive dialysis. These patients are at risk of developing cardiovascular complications [heart failure, high blood pressure and strokes] and there are few medications ava...
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The Cancer Research team at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary have been working on the ARC-9 study. They are the only centre in the UK who have managed to recruit participants to this study. They have recruited 2 patients, and both are still on treatment. The...
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The new study will investigate the experiences of work support for people with musculoskeletal conditions. Making it Work™ is an online self-management programme developed in Canada which supports people working with inflammatory arthritis. Researche...
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Dr Rosemary Hollick, a Rheumatologist in NHS Grampian and a Senior Clinical lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, has been in touch to tell us about the VOICES study. Why was VOICES set up? VOICES was designed to help us decide how best to organis...
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The SEATON @ 25 study recruited its first participant. This study is lead by Professor Steve Turner. SEATON stands for A Study of Eczema and Asthma To Observe the influence of Nutrition. The underlying question is “is mum’s diet during pregnancy lin...
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In early 2020 the NHS Grampian Endowment Fund launched a call for research applications into COVID-19. Here are first results from one of the successful projects. This project is a collaboration lead by researchers from the University of Aberdeen – P...
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Mrs Jennifer Greenhowe is a plastic surgeon at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital. As part of her recently awarded NRS career fellowship she will undertake a research project to understand more about scars (1) and how to treat them. Scarring can ...
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Our Emergency Department (ED) in the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary supports several research studies. One of them is called ABC Sepsis. Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the when the body overreacts to an infection and starts attacki...
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Every year NHS Grampian Endowments provide funds to local research projects. These funds are for smaller or pilot projects and need to benefit NHS Grampian or its patients. To ensure NHS Grampian patients and the public have a voice in which project...
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What is a cavernoma? Cavernoma are clusters of abnormal blood vessels in the brain or spinal cord that look like raspberries. In the UK 1 in roughly 600 people has a cavernoma, but only 1 in 400,000 people each year are newly diagnosed with a caverno...
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RAACENO is short for Reducing Asthma Attacks in Children using Exhaled Nitric Oxide. The RAACENO randomised clinical trial looked at whether the addition of exhaled nitric oxide to routine asthma care reduced asthma attacks in children. The trial web...
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The last day of February marks Rare Disease Day. It aims to raise awareness of rare diseases. A rare disease is defined by the EU if it occurs in less than 1 in 2000 people [1]. Taken together there are more than 6000 rare diseases worldwide and 1 in...
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Stroke is a serious medical condition and can lead to death or disability. It occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is blocked. It is a medical emergency and requires immediate treatment. There are two types of stroke, ischaemic stroke an...
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The Oncology research team at NHS Grampian was the first place to have a patient take part in the ADePT-DDR study. This study is looking at a new medicine for particular types of head and neck cancers. This medicine is created to be taken alongside r...
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SHARE is a national database of people who are happy to be research volunteers within Scotland. Individuals can sign up to be contacted about research projects. They can also choose to donate leftover blood samples from their medical appointments to ...
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Dr Dimitra Blana has shared a video of a recent project, which has been using Health Data Science(1) to help NHS Grampian on Covid-19 decisions. The researchers developed a model to predict hospital care (hospitalisation). They also made tools to tha...
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This is a UK wide study that is part of the Cancer Research UK Stratified Medicine Programme. CRUK have made video about the programme which you can access through their website Personalised medicine | Cancer information | Cancer Research UK The stu...
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FLAIR is a UK wide randomised phase 3 trial comparing different treatments for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), a cancer of the blood. The researchers are adding a drug called ibrutinib, a cancer growth blocker, to CLL treatments. Four different ...
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Chest pain suggestive of a heart attack (1) is a common reason for calling an ambulance, and for being transferred to the Emergency Department. However, only about 1 in 5 patients turn out to have this condition. In a recent research study called ACC...
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Over the past year research activity in the Breast Unit has increased despite the impact of COVID. The team recruited 52 volunteers to breast cancer studies since January 2020, which exceeds the number of patients recruited during 2019. In 2020 two o...
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Our Lead Children’s Research Nurse Maggie got in touch: “We have good news here in the Sick kids - our Paediatric Orthopaedic* studies have started recruiting patients now that the weather is getting warmer - although we don't like to see children wi...
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NHS Grampian has 2 Covid-19 vaccine studies running from Aberdeen. The one which opened up first has been approved to change into a crossover study. What is a crossover study? A crossover study is when the patients taking part receive more than one t...
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To mark International Clinical Trials Day, Rachel from the North of Scotland Ethics Service will be sharing a video about research ethics on Youtube. Research needs ethical approval before it is allowed to happen. For the NHS, this often involves a g...
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Did you know that NHS Grampian has a biorepository? But what do they do? A biorepository is like a library, which does not store books but biological samples. Our biorepository processes and stores samples from patients and makes them available for ...
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Mr Luke Farrow, a local orthopaedic surgeon has been awarded a Chief Scientist Office (CSO) Clinical Academic Fellowship. The fellowship will allow him to dedicate time to research. As an orthopaedic surgeon, he performs operations like hip or knee r...
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Each year researchers in Grampian can apply for funding from NHS Grampian Endowments. The grants are open to medical, dental, scientific and clinical staff. They are aimed at funding one year’s pilot research projects, which might have an impact on h...
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Hosting a research study requires teamwork. There are lots of people helping with delivering a research study. There are speciality doctors, surgeons, research nurses, data managers, healthcare support workers, pathologists, radiologists, clinical tr...
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Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI) has recently been activated as a recruitment site for a new UK wide breast cancer trial called SMALL. The SMALL trial is for women participating in the NHS breast screening programme and who had a small early breast ca...
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In this past year, the research community has worked incredibly hard to understand Covid-19 and to find treatments and vaccines. More than one million participants took part in Covid-19 research across more than 180 studies UK-wide. For more details,...
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Endometriosis? What’s that? Endometriosis is an oestrogen dependent condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb is found elsewhere in the body. It generally affects women from puberty to menopause. The condition presents in different for...
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FUTURE (Female Urgency, Trial of Urodynamics as Routine Evaluation) study has reached a milestone. The trial team got in touch with us saying: “We have slightly exceeded our recruitment target of 1096 participants (with 1099 participants randomised)...
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Last week a study led by Aberdeen Medical students reported that the number of international arrivals in a country was associated with the numbers of COVID-19 deaths. It sparked considerable media interest around the world. The study found that more ...
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After the arrival of Covid-19, the world has seen an unprecedented push for the development of Covid-19 treatments and vaccines. Covid-19 vaccines were developed, tested, approved and rolled out in record times. Understandably many people have questi...
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Although we mostly share good news on research and research staff, there are many hidden NHS Heroes within Grampian. These people may not directly work in research but their roles are important for making sure that research along with other important...
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The results of the UK FROST (UK Frozen Shoulder Trial) study has recently been published. This study looked to see which treatment options are best for adults with frozen shoulder. Frozen shoulder is the term used for when someone’s shoulder has had ...
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Have you heard the term CRF before? Wonder what it means and why it’s important? A CRF is a Clinical Research Facility. Clinical research facilities are where clinical research takes place. Clinical research is another name for medical research or re...
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This week an article was published on how we have been working to improve research awareness in Grampian. This article talks about how the website has been created and why. Some of things we tried during this journey were successful and some things d...
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Miss Beatrix Elsberger is a Consultant Breast Surgeon within the Breast Unit at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer with the University of Aberdeen. She has recently started her National Research Scotland (NRS) Fellowshi...
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At the beginning of the pandemic most medical research stopped. All NHS staff concentrated on the fight of Covid-19 and Covid-19 research was prioritised. This article provides updates on what is happening with Covid-19 research and other research no...
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NHS Grampian and University of Aberdeen offered funding for early research projects. These grants were to help projects get the ball rolling, but they will be applying for larger funding within the next year. There were two successful projects which...
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A recent article has come out detailing the work of research nurses in the UK and the role they play in battling Covid-19. Although all clinical staff are battling tough times while working to reduce the impact of Covid-19, research nurses are at the...
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NHS Grampian has been celebrating the amazing contribution of staff, who are working above and beyond their duty, during this challenging time. We are very proud that some of our staff have been nominated for this award. To date, the staff and teams ...
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Aberdeen researchers have been involved in a study which looks at the risk factors for placental abruption during pregnancy. Placental abruption is when the placenta starts to separate from the wall inside of the womb.1 It is a serious condition tha...
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Many of our research staff have temporarily changed their work to help with the Covid-19 pandemic. We spoke to Carole Edwards, Lead Research Nurse, who gave us an update on the work of her team. “A big thank you goes out to the Clinical Research Nurs...
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Many of our Research and Development (R&D) team have been helping out at the front lines since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak. Staff have been redeployed to various areas. Some of our R&D staff are managing the Personal Protective Equipme...
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Each year researchers in Grampian can apply for funding from NHS Grampian Endowments. The grants are open to medical, dental, scientific and clinical staff. They are aimed at funding one year’s pilot research projects, which might have an impact on h...
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Dr Pauline Williams, an Aberdeen GP, has been awarded a National Research Scotland (NRS) fellowship. This will allow her to dedicate one day per week to research while continuing to work as GP. We asked Dr Williams what this means to her. Here is wh...
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Our Stroke Research team’s efforts are highlighted in the latest BLOC-ICH study newsletter. Our team puts Aberdeen Royal Infirmary among the top recruiting centres. Well done to the stroke doctors and research nurses Vicky and Janice! The BLOC-ICH* s...
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Our emergency care research team was RAPIDly off the starting block for the RAPID-I* study. They recruited their first patient to the study only 1 day after receiving the green light for starting recruitment. Well done Mandi, Sirjana, Leia and Jamie!...
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Clinical research is extremely beneficial for the NHS and the UK economy, according to a recent report. The report was commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and was published in October 2019. The report shows that Clinica...
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The body’s defence (immune response) has been studied mainly by looking at its cells and at the chemical signals that control them. Many drugs aim to treat problems of the immune system by changing these signals. However, two studies carried out in A...
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Our website is hosting an innovative “research experience” interactive game, which illustrates the journey through a clinical research study in a friendly way. Players can now choose to “experience” the three different types of studies: (Investigatio...
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Public Involvement (PPI) is fundamental to guarantee that research is carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public, rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them. The UK Standards for Public Involvement in research, which have been designed to improve ...
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Are you 60 years or older? Do you want to get involved in identifying research needs for health and care of older people? You can get involved with the Ageing Research Network. The Ageing Research Network was set up by researchers of the Robert Gord...
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NHS Grampian employs many research nurses to support clinical research. Jo Baxter is a Vascular Access and Clinical Research Nurse, based at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. She is involved with a research study in the renal dialysis unit, called “High-Vol...
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A previous Grampian research participant has kindly shared her experience to help people understand why research happens. You can read her story below. If you would like to share your experience then please contact nhsg.ppa@nhs.net to find out more ...
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