Kristin Gillingham, Principal Investigator

Random Assignment of Treatments in Solid Organ Transplant Research

Randomized clinical trials are often conducted in solid organ transplant research. Currently, such trials involve comparisons of various new immunosuppressive drugs to standard therapies studying the effectiveness of steroid withdrawal at various times post-transplant compared to usual steroid dosing, comparison of different prophylactic treatments to prevent infection post-transplant, and comparison of various antirejection treatments.

To implement the random assignment of treatments to patients in various kidney-transplant studies, this researcher has written a computer program in FORTRAN 77. This program, which is run on the supercomputers, provides individual randomization cards that are sealed in envelopes and “pulled” at the time a new patient enters a particular study. The program also provides a master list of treatment assignments for each study.