Data standards that define specifications for the representation and transfer of data can improve data accessibility, predictability, integration, and storage, allowing reviewers to focus on the analysis and interpretation of data. Although there are several standards for use in clinical trials, critical gaps still exist for standardizing data at the point of collection. In particular, a set of standard common data elements will improve data quality across the drug lifecycle, making it easier for CDER reviewers to compare data across different studies and adding considerable value to the larger clinical trials community and those using the results in practice and policy. The overall goal of this application is to define a set of common, standard measures and assessments and associated common data elements for use in clinical trials related to a specific therapeutic area. The strength of our research plan is an innovative, consensus-based process for first prioritizing a therapeutic area that could benefit most from common measures, identifying a set of high- quality, high-priority measures to address that therapeutic area, and then building broad-based community support for collecting those measures in studies across the drug lifecycle. Once a set of high-quality clinical research measures have been vetted with the community, we will develop an implementation guide including a set of transparent, freely available, XML-based tools to support use of the measures by the research community.
Specific Aim 1 : Establish an infrastructure to support broad consensus building. A Clinical Trials Research Panel (CTRP) will be established to prioritize therapeutic areas for development of standard assessments, define the criteria for selecting measures, and monitor the progress of the project.
Specific Aim 2 : Build broad community support around a set of high-quality, high-priority measures for use in clinical research. A Clinical Trials Working Group (CTWG) will be assembled to address the therapeutic area prioritized by the CTRP using a well-established consensus process. The CTWG will first identify a preliminary set of measures and then present those measures to the larger community for feedback and comment.
Specific Aim 3 : Support implementation of the prioritized measures. The measures prioritized by the CTWG will be disseminated to the community through an implementation guide that will include overarching comments from the CTWG and CTRP, a standardized set of metadata for each measure, and XML-based templates to help investigators collect data and submit results to the FDA CDER in a consistent manner.
The overall goal of this application is to define a set of common, standard measures and assessments and associated common data elements for use in clinical trials related to a specific therapeutic area. A set of standard common data elements will improve data quality across the drug lifecycle, making it easier for FDA reviewers to compare data across different studies and set the stage for data sharing across all types of clinical research.
