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Commentary

Nature 446, 137-138 (8 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/446137a; Published online 7 March 2007

Open Innovation Challenges

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Keeping faith with trial volunteers

Martine Piccart1, Aron Goldhirsch1, William Wood2, Kathleen Pritchard3, José Baselga4, Linda Reaby5, Ingrid Kössler6, Stella Kyriakides6, Larry Norton7 & Alan Coates8

  1. Martine Piccart and Aron Goldhirsch are at the Breast International Group.
  2. The Breast Cancer Intergroup
  3. The Early Breast Cancer Trialists Collaborative Group
  4. Grupo Espanol de Estudio y Tratamiento Tumores Solidos
  5. The Australian New Zealand Breast Cancer Trials Group Consumer Advisory Panel
  6. The European Breast Cancer Coalition
  7. The Breast Cancer Research Foundation
  8. The International Breast Cancer Study Group.

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How best to serve patients' interests in large clinical trials? Martine Piccart, Aron Goldhirsch and their colleagues argue that maintaining academic independence is essential to early breast cancer trials.

How do patients who sign up for clinical trials know that the right questions are being asked and that the data support the reported answers to these questions? For many patient groups, transparency in study design, data collection and analysis, and full publication of results are issues of paramount importance.