11/05/09 ARI meeting minutes (by Thomas Lam)

Meeting date : 11th May 2009 Monday 4:30pm to 6:00pm
Attended by : John, Olivier, Tom, Sam

Minutes :

1) Discussed queries that Olivier had in regard to :

i. CT stage : On closer inspection, this actually refers to Clinical T stage rather than staging obtained from CT scan (i.e. DRE stage, as in Partin tables).

ii. Missing or incomplete data : Overall, we have about 1,600 patients with complete data (i.e. pre-op. PSA, Gleason sum score, DRE and post-op. pathological stage) from a total of more than 7,000 on the database. However, there may be around 400 more as Olivier had excluded patients with pT2 disease.

iii. Pre-op. clinical T stage : Will include sub-stage classes of T2a,b, c, etc. If expressed only as 'T2' or 'T3', then should be excluded.

iv. Post-op. pathological stage : Will include only pT2, pT3a, pT3b and Lymph node positive/negative. Hence, all subdivisions of T2 (eg. T2a,b,c) and T2 on its own can be amalgamated as 'T2'. However, pT3 on its own will be excluded as the subdivisions are the main outcome measures.

v. Bott and Emberton paper : We had a close look at this paper. They had almost 2,000 patients but crucially they omitted pre-op. clinical T stage (or DRE); instead they used % core biopsy volume involvement as a surrogate for this. Hence our study will hopefully be more representative of Partin tables than theirs.


2) Time line : We're actually ahead of schedule. Olivier to continue working on the data once we get clarification from Sarah (BAUS) in regard to the database being consistent (in regard to why only half of patients have complete pathological data).

3) Action points : John to contact Sarah in regard to the above.

4) Further grant application : JRI application : result still pending. If we're not successful, John has identified alternative funding sources to carry the work beyond our pilot phase.

5) Next meeting : 15th June 2009, 4:30pm - 5:30pm, Ward 44 Seminar Room (already booked with Lena Thompson). Apologies for my absence as I'll be on annual leave (holiday in sunny Malaysia from 1st-28th June).