On 21 March, between 40 and 50 representatives of the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia (EPAD) project met in Edinburgh, to launch the largest ever specific pre-dementia cohort. Participants at the “1st wave Investigator meeting” included representatives from Clinical Research Organisations (CROs) and six dedicated teams from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The objective of the meeting, which took place at St Leonard’s Hall, was to prepare attendees from trial delivery centres (TDCs) to put the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) into action.
Day one of the two-day meeting mainly focused on explaining how the LCS works conceptually. Tony Brooks, Graciela Muniz Terrera and Craig Ritchie amongst others explained the purpose of the protocol and how the LCS is different from other cohort studies. Ray French also spoke about the role and responsibilities of ACCORD (The Academic and Clinical Central Office for Research and Development – a partnership between the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian Health Board) in the LCS, and Judi Syson closed the first day of the meeting with a few words on progress m
On 21 March, between 40 and 50 representatives of the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia (EPAD) project met in Edinburgh, to launch the largest ever specific pre-dementia cohort. Participants at the “1st wave Investigator meeting” included representatives from Clinical Research Organisations (CROs) and six dedicated teams from France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and The UK. The objective of the meeting, which took place at St Leonard’s Hall, was to prepare attendees from trial delivery centres (TDCs) to put the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) into action.
Day one of the two-day meeting mainly focused on explaining how the LCS works conceptually. Tony Brooks, Graciela Muniz Terrera and Craig Ritchie amongst others explained the purpose of the protocol and how the LCS is different from other cohort studies. Ray French also spoke about the role and responsibilities of ACCORD (The Academic and Clinical Central Office for Research and Development – a partnership between the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian Health Board) in the LCS, and Judi Syson closed the first day of the meeting with a few words on progress made with the Ethics Committee (EC) approvals for the different sites.
Day two focused on the truly operational aspects of the project, and included training for all site personnel on monitoring and data management (Quintiles) sample handling (The Roslin Institute), the procedure for taking and processing MRI images (IXICO) and how cognitive tests work, including a hands-on session using tablets (Medavante). To close the day, a few words were said by Mila Etropolski from WP4, on how the LCS will continue into the Proof-of-Concept (PoC) study.
Lisa Vermunt, based at the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam (VUMC), is involved in WP3, helping to set up the EPAD Register and the TDC in Amsterdam. “Since the beginning I am looking forward to the start of the cohort – actually seeing participants for our investigations – and now we are really almost there!” she enthused after attending the Edinburgh meeting.
Samuel Rabanaque, based at the Fundación Pasqual Maragall, is mainly working on WP4 and will be involved in running the trial at the Barcelona site. “The Investigator meeting allowed us to review in a concentrated way all materials and procedures involving EPAD-LCS protocol. Besides, it gave us the opportunity to share our doubts and expectations with colleagues from other centres”, he said.
The goal of the EPAD initiative is the prevention of dementia in people with evidence of the disease (such as biomarker abnormalities) who still may have little or no complaints or clinical symptoms. EPAD’s European-wide cohort will consist of over 6,000 participants, of which 1,500 will be invited to participate in a trial to test new treatments for the prevention of Alzheimer’s dementia. The five year programme is part of the Innovative Medicines Initiative.
Follow EPAD on Twitter @IMI_EPAD and keep up to date with the cohort via the hashtag #EPADCohort.