The Neurocritical Care Research Network (NCRN): Building an International Research Infrastructure
Chair: Jose I Suarez, MD*. Vice-Chair: Peter D LeRoux, MD+. Other members of the NCS Research Committee: Salvador Cruz-Flores, MD; Mustapha Ezzeddine, MD; Jennifer
Frontera, MD; Romergryko Geocadin, MD; Carmelo Graffagnino, MD; Christiana Hall, MD; L. Michael James, MD; Walter Koroshetz, MD; Stephan Mayer, MD; Marek Mirski, MD, PhD;
DaiWai Olson, PhD, RN; Gail Pyne-Geithman, PhD; Jonathan Rosand, MD; David Seder, MD; Paul Vespa, MD; Christine Wijman, MD; Osama Zaidat, MD; Wendy Ziai, MD; Kevin Sheth, MD.
*Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care, Department of Neurology, St Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX; +Department of Neurosurgery,
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE
The NCRN is a sub-committee of the Neurocritical Care Society
committed to supporting and fostering the mission of the Society
and is accountable to its Board of Directors.
The NCRN is composed of neurocritical care units and passionate
neurointensivists who are motivated to carry out excellent clinical
research in neurocritical care and to collaborate with colleagues
around the world (1).
VISION AND MISSION OF NCRN
Mission
The mission of the NCRN will be to serve as a conduit for the
design and execution of high quality, multi-center studies in the
neurocritical care setting, intended to enhance the understanding of
neurocritical care disorders and to improve outcome of the
neurocritically ill patient. NCRN also will be committed to foster
investigator-initiated collaborative studies and promote and
promulgate neurocritical care research internationally.
Vision
• To promote neurocritical care research.
• To enhance and facilitate high-quality investigator-initiated
studies.
• To investigate clinically-relevant questions drawing from both
bedside and laboratory observations.
• To advance the understanding and development of research
methods.
Core values
Collaboration and collegiality.
Innovation.
Promotion and development of scientific thought.
Integrity.
Accountability to our scientific community and our patients.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Figure 3. City population
STUDY DESIGN
Proportion
The NCRN was created in 2010 to further research endeavors in neurocritical
care. In this report we update the NCS and show progress of the NCRN toward
organizing the research infrastructure. We have abstracted data from the
registration questionnaire that individuals or institutions are required to fill out
when they request NCRN membership. Here we describe the number of
participating sites along with their geographic location, and organization.
< 100K
100K - 250K
250K-500K
500 - 750K
750K - 1m
>1million
RESULTS
There were 170 registrations in the NCRN database as of September 18, 2011,
with 154 confirmable active sites. The database includes sites from 23 countries.
Nearly two thirds of sites are located in the US. Other countries include with
number of sites: Canada 6, Germany 5, Argentina 5, Colombia 3, Holland 3,
Brazil 3, Japan 2, Philippines 2, Switzerland (2) and several other countries with
1.
Most sites are located in large urban centers (72%), are academic centers (79%),
have dedicated neuroICUs (79%), and have >500 hospital beds (62%) (Figures 13).
Most institutions have dedicated neuroICUs (78.2%) and neurointensivists cared for
most of the patients (64.3%). Other practitioners that care for neuroICU patients
include: PCCM (8.3%), anesthesiologists intensivists (4.2%), surgical intensivists
(1.8%) and others (21.4%).
Research activities:
Even though majority of members are currently participating in clinical trials (66%),
they are not members of any other research network (68%). However, 98% of
members are willing to participate in clinical trials via NCRN and most of them
(72%) already have full-time research coordinators.
Figure 1. Type of institution
Academic Center
Private nonacademic
Public nonacademic
Other
CONCLUSIONS
• The NCRN now includes a large number of centers from many countries.
• This evolution into a large organized research infrastructure shows promise to be
able to move the field of Neurocritical Care research forward.
• NCRN is currently endorsing three Phase III clinical trials:
-ATACH II: funded by NINDS and currently actively enrolling.
-ALISAH II: submitted to NINDS for funding October 2011.
-TISH: currently under review by NINDS
REFERENCE:
1. Suarez JI, Geocadin R, Hall C, et al. The Neurocritical Care Research Network:
NCRN. Neurocrit Care 2011 Jul 27 [Epub ahead of print]
Figure 2.Number of beds in institution
30.00%
Contact:
25.00%
Jose I Suarez, MD
20.00%
E-mail: jisuarez@bcm.edu or info@neurocriticalcare.org
-
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
< 250
250 - 500
500 - 750
7150 - 1000
> 1000