The ACR-RSNA Fellowship in Clinical Trials of Medical Imaging: reflections from the 2002 recipients.

Abstract

The American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) is a cooperative group established in 1999 under the aegis of the American College of Radiology (ACR) with funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to support oncology-related clinical trials. ACRIN’s objective is to conduct clinical trials of diagnostic imaging and image-guided therapeutic technologies to improve the health, longevity, and quality of life of cancer patients. As a clinical trials consortium, ACRIN has brought together more than 110 institutions and hundreds of radiologist researchers and imaging scientists to participate in 17 (as of the most recent count) multiinstitutional trials. These trials are at different stages: Some are closed and the resultant data are being analyzed, whereas others are open for patient accrual or in development. With the formation of ACRIN, it became clear that there was a shortage of radiologists with the necessary background and training to conduct the rigorous multicenter clinical trials that the NCI had charged ACRIN to implement. To address this imbalance, the ACR and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) jointly endowed a grant for three radiologists to be selected annually to receive training and experience in the development and conduct of rigorous, multidisciplinary, multiinstitutional clinical trials for the advancement of medical imaging technologies. The competitive award is known as the ACR-RSNA Fellowship in Clinical Trials of Medical Imaging. All radiologists, regardless of specialty, academic rank, practice setting, or nationality, are eligible. The first 3 months of the fellowship include 1 month each at the ACRIN Biostatistical and Data Management Center (Center for Statistical Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI) and at the headquarters of ACRIN (the ACR research office in Philadelphia, Pa) and 1 month as a guest of the Biomedical Imaging Program at the NCI, in Bethesda, Md. The fellows spend the remaining 9 months at their home institutions while participating in leadership of ACRIN trials. It is hoped that their fellowship experience will culminate in their designing and leading a multicenter trial as principal investigators. As the fellowship recipients in 2002, we spent our 1st month at the Center for Statistical Sciences at Brown University, headed by Constantine Gatsonis, PhD. The Center specializes in the statistical methods needed specifically for conducting clinical trials in which the interpretation of medical images is paramount. There we obtained the statistical training required to understand the basics of clinical trial design. We also had the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the various ACRIN protocols, and when questions arose, to discuss them with the statisticians involved. Our 2nd month was spent at the administrative headquarters of ACRIN, on Market Street in Philadelphia, Pa. ACRIN shares these offices with the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, which was founded more than 25 years ago with an NIH grant similar to that supporting ACRIN. The collection and management of data from the ACRIN trials are coordinated and handled here. In the short period since ACRIN was founded, the team developed by Acad Radiol 2003; 10:565–566