Rhyl

Disease-related malnutrition (DRM) is a highly prevalent condition which leads to significant adverse health and economic burden. For the management of patients with DRM, oral nutritional supplements (ONS) are recommended and often prescribed (typically 1-3/day). ONS are energy- and nutrient-dense feeds that provide macro and micro-nutrients, designed to increase nutritional intake when diet alone is insufficient to meet daily nutritional requirements. The use of ONS has been shown to be effective for managing DRM by improving patient outcomes, including alleviating disease symptoms, aiding recovery from illness, regaining strength and improving quality of life, and reducing mortality. Additionally, the use of ONS has been reported to be cost effective in the healthcare setting due to reduced complications, fewer hospitalisations, and a reduced length of hospital stay. An important outcome to enable ONS to be clinically and physiologically effective is compliance (i.e., how much the patient consumes relative to what is prescribed). Whilst good compliance to ONS in both hospital and community patients has been reported (78%), compliance in some patient groups has been reported to be as low as 35%. Poor compliance has been reported due to inability to consume the required volume, poor palatability, and taste fatigue. Furthermore, with increasing trends in plant-based food consumption and veganism, the lack of plant-based ONS may reduce compliance in vegan patients or those wishing to reduce animal-derived consumption for cultural or religious reasons. Consequently, there is a clear need for the development of different types of ONS which better cater both for patients with reported low compliance, but also patients with potentially higher compliance when presented with increased variety and choice. The aim of this study is to evaluate compliance, acceptability, gastrointestinal tolerance, nutrient intake, appetite, nutritional status, and safety of four new ready to drink ONS. This is a prospective, longitudinal, 28-day intervention study with a 1-day baseline period. During the intervention period, patients will receive one of the four ONS for 28 days alongside their routine diet.

This is a multi-centre, randomised, non-inferiority, phase III study in patients with low risk differentiated thyroid cancer. Patients will be identified via oncology multidisciplinary team meetings. There will be two sources of patients in the trial, with the same histological diagnoses and prognosis (i.e. recurrence risk): * Group 1: Patients who have already had a HT for thyroid problems and are then subsequently diagnosed with low risk DTC will be randomised 1:1 to undergo surveillance only OR a second operation to remove the rest of their thyroid gland (two-stage total thyroidectomy). * Group 2: Patients diagnosed with low risk DTC using cytology (Thy5) but no surgery performed will be randomised 1:1 to have either a hemi-thyroidectomy OR a single-stage total thyroidectomy. The overall aim of the trial is to determine whether hemithyroidectomy is an acceptable and cost-effective surgical procedure compared to total thyroidectomy in low risk thyroid cancer. Overall, 456 patients will be recruited to the trial. Patients will be initially be followed up post-surgery then 12 monthly for 6 years.

RATIONALE: The current global standard of care after nephrectomy for localised RCC therefore remains active monitoring (i.e., observation by clinical and radiological means). 30-40% patients with initially localised RCC develop metastatic disease following nephrectomy. Need for adjuvant therapy is most marked in the high risk population where outcomes are predictably poor. However, the risk of recurrence in patients who are of intermediate risk of recurrence is not insignificant. Unfortunately, despite showing efficacy in advanced RCC, the results in the adjuvant setting, so far, are inconclusive. AIM: RAMPART is a phase III Multi-Arm Multi-Stage randomised controlled platform trial, initiated with three arms. The trial is assessing if durvalumab monotherapy or the combination of durvalumab and tremelimumab can improve Disease Free Survival (DFS) or Overall Survival (OS) compared to the current global standard-of-care (active monitoring). At the start of recruitment, patients with Leibovich scores 3 to 11 will be eligible for randomisation. Accrual of intermediate risk patients (Leibovich scores 3 5) will stop after 3 years or when intermediate risk patients contribute 25% of the total accrual target, whichever is earlier. Recruitment of patients with Leibovich scores 6 to 11 will continue until the accrual target is reached.

Approximately half of patients with heart failure have a normal, or preserved, left ventricular ejection fraction (HFpEF) (Owen et al, 2006). Rather than being a single diagnosis, it has become clear that HFpEF represents a heterogeneous syndrome involving a range of pathophysiological mechanisms, clinical factors and outcomes (Lewis et al, 2017). However, to-date, HFpEF has generally been considered as a single disease entity. Several high profile phase III trials in HFpEF have shown potentially impressive efficacy in some subgroups of patients, but failed to prove significance over entire cohorts (Pitt et al, 2014) (Solomon et al, 2019). This is likely due to the 'one-size-fits-all' approach taken, with insufficient stratification of the various underlying disease mechanisms. The large and rapidly growing burden that HFpEF places on our healthcare systems mean there is a pressing need to better understand HFpEF and improve the management of patients with it. The recurrent lack of benefit of the one-size-fits-all approach mandates a new, personalised approach. The UK HFpEF registry will be a key platform for collaborative UK clinical and translational HFpEF research. The aim is that multiple centres will collaborate and contribute patients such that the registry will provide deep phenotyping, linked to outcomes, in, ultimately, many thousands of patients. This will enable, for example, machine learning techniques to be applied at scale in order to reclassify HFpEF more powerfully. It will provide a platform for the development of diagnostics specific to the different HFpEF subgroups, and for more effective trials that will target groups of patients in whom new, repurposed or previously discarded treatments are expected to be effective. Moreover, it will provide cohorts of patients readily available for recruitment, with linkage in place for outcomes. It could be used to leverage commercial funding and participation, facilitated by simplified, single-point access for industry. It will enable scaled investigation aimed at understanding causes of HFpEF, improving risk stratification and providing better care.