The Centre for Evidence in Transplantation (CET) was established at the beginning of 2005 by Professor Sir Peter Morris with the aim of providing a source of high quality evidence based information on all aspects of solid organ transplantation.
The CET has been involved in a number of projects since its establishment, one of which has been to establish a registry of all randomised controlled trials in organ transplantation and to evaluate the methodological quality of those trials since January 2004. This registry was published as a regular feature in the journal Transplantation, but from January 2008 this has been replaced by the Transplant Library. The Transplant Library is an electronic library of all RCTs in solid organ transplantation, including congress abstracts, from 1970 to the present and more recently includes systematic reviews that are regarded as of reasonable quality, and clinical practice guidelines. More recently, we have added invited expert commentaries to key articles and the ability for users to comment on and discuss articles on the site. To promote the Transplant Library CET produces the Transplant Trial Watch, a monthly overview of RCTs that were recently added to the Transplant Library. The Trial Watch includes a summary of the RCT, critical commentary written by CET and critical appraisal.
The Centre has also carried out and is carrying out a large number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in all aspects of solid organ transplantation. Many of these have been published in peer reviewed journals and are well cited. The CET staff have expertise in literature searching, risk of bias assessment and meta-analysis, including handling missing data, mixed effects analysis and network meta-analysis.
More recently, the CET has been involved in the design and reporting of clinical trials in transplantation, including the management and design of the Consortium for Organ Preservation in Europe (COPE) clinical trials in partnership with the Surgical Interventional Trials Unit (SITU).
The CET also has an agreement with the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) that we will become the Knowledge Centre for ESOT and would offer advice on the design of RCTs and systematic reviews, as well as provide assistance with the reporting of RCTs and systematic reviews. Trials that were methodologically sound in design will be given ESOT/CET accreditation.
What drives us
In an analysis of the methodology of randomised controlled trials in organ transplantation between 2004 and 2006, it was found that only around one third of those trials were methodologically sound in their design. A smaller sample of 91 RCT's published in 2004 was evaluated for the quality of reporting of outcomes of RCT’s and again we found significant defects in a majority of trials.
These findings have led the drive for the CET to work to improve the quality of evidence in solid organ transplantation, by summarizing existing evidence, highlighting deficiencies in trial design and assisting in the design of robust randomised controlled trials.
The Transplant Library
The Transplant Library can be accessed at www.transplantlibrary.com.
CET news
Prioritising research topics in transplantation
The Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences’ Centre for Evidence in Transplantation (CET) has recently completed a research project which prioritised research topics in transplantation.
CET members elected to BTS committees
Two members of the Centre for Evidence in Transplantation (CET) at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences have been elected to the committees of the British Transplantation Society (BTS).