End of September 2010  the ECFS announced that the selection for the first extension wave of the ECFS-Clinical Trials Network (ECFS-CTN) has started.

It is important that all clinics who are interested know about this extension and can apply.

In 2008, a milestone has been reached in our fight against CF: for the first time ever drugs aiming at the cause of the disease, called ‘disease modifying drugs’ were shown to be non toxic, well tolerated and to have some efficacy in small and moderate size trials. They now need to be tested on large numbers of patients. In order to mobilize all resources to make these hopes become new efficient therapies and finally defeat CF safely and efficiently, ECFS has formed a ‘European clinical trial network’, the ECFS-CTN. The aim of this new network is to implement high quality clinical research in order to facilitate the progress of drugs from clinical trials to the patient. In a first round ECFS has selected 18 CF centres across Europe fulfilling criteria of state of the art care of CF patients and showing commitment to undertake clinical research together. Extra CF centres are now invited to join the network. Together, they will be able to safely carry out clinical trials including large numbers of patients and this is critical to know quickly and reliably if a drug can be of real benefit to the patients.

CF Europe has been a partner of the ECFS-CTN from the very beginning. Promoting a positive attitude towards clinical research is one of the great challenges for our associations for the coming years. We invited member associations to inform patients about clinical research, about the coming treatments, the possible improvement in the patients' daily life and about possible new medications that these studies might bring to patients and show the importance of patients’ participation in clinical studies.

The application form can be downloaded from the ECFS CTN website: http://www.ecfs.eu/ctn/application-forms
Don't hesitate to contact the ECFS CTN Coordinating Centre in case you need further information.
ECFS-CTN@uzleuven.be
tel. +32 16 34 38 31
fax. +32 16 34 38 17