|Articles|November 8, 2012

Diabetes Research in Clinical Trials

Author(s)Maureen Lyden

My mother was a Type 1 diabetic. As a family, we lived through her heartache as she lost her vision and had to give up her career as a teacher. It caused early heart disease that took her life in her 50's. Since her death the research that’s continued has been so enormous and made such a difference in quality as well as quantity of life. That is very exciting since she was hoping for something better for patients like herself.

As luck has it, our company has been able to work with Roche Diagnostics for years on research related to patient's glucose monitoring. We have been a key part of multiple publications from this research. One study our research data was cited in evaluated the impact of an automated decision support tool (DST) on clinicians’ ability to identify glycemic abnormalities in structured self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) data and then make appropriate therapeutic changes based on the glycemic patterns observed.

Our statistician Zhihong (Jenny) Jelsovsky has contributed to all of this effort in diabetes. She makes BSI shine in this area. I am just so glad that through her work my company has been helping the cause in some way.

Our company doesn’t consider our work related to diabetes philanthropic in any way. We get paid for what we do, and I can't say that we work harder on those projects than any other. We are just part of a much larger effort in the battle, no matter how small. I am just glad we are since it lets me at least in some way connect to those hopes for a better quality of life from my Mom.

 

Maureen R. Lyden, M.S. founded BioStat International, Inc. in 1994 with an extensive background in biostatistical analysis in pharmaceutical, biotechnical and medical device clinical research.


Related to this article

© C Davids/peopleimages.com - © C Davids/peopleimages.com - stock.adobe.com
The clinical research industry talks about patient-centeredness constantly but embeds it too late, too narrowly, and without clear ownership, and the cost shows up in enrollment failures, protocol deviations, and outcomes that don't reflect what patients actually care about.
The Human Side of Clinical Trials: How Measuring Readiness at Training Predicts Trial Risk Before It Shows Up in the Data
This episode of The Human Side of Clinical Trials, hosted by Brian S. McGowan, PhD, FACEHP, chief learning officer and co-founder of ArcheMedX, Inc., and Kelly Ritch, chief operating officer of ArcheMedX, Inc., explores why training completion metrics like attendance and quiz scores fail to capture true study readiness, and how measuring both competence and confidence can reveal trial risks before enrollment even begins.