The University of Pittsburgh, School of Health Sciences www.health.pitt.edu was awarded a Department of Defense (DOD) www.defense.gov contract (W81XWH-16-D-0024-0001) supported by the Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity www.usamraa.army.mil that may lead to $90 million in research over the next decade to improve trauma care for both civilians and military personnel.
The contract will launch with a $10.8 million project to create a nationwide network of trauma systems and centers to conduct detailed research to improve military trauma care. This network called the “Linking Investigations in Trauma and Emergency Services” (LITES) will provide extensive data to obtain and link information covering pre-hospital care through recovery after discharge on potentially thousands of trauma cases across the country.
In the initial project, the LITES Network is expected to provide epidemiological data on moderate and severe injuries in the U.S and identify any regional variations in the types of injuries and the way they are being managed.
“Our immediate goal is to characterize what our network can do by obtaining intensive data from the pre-hospital and in-hospital settings”, said Jason L. Sperry, MD and Principal Investigator and Professor of Surgery and Critical Care Medicine at Pitt’s School of Medicine www.upmc.com .
He adds, “Our sense is that after about two years of accruing large amounts of data, we will be able to launch subsequent projects at DOD’s request. This could include doing randomized clinical trials to find out what approaches to care work and how to keep people injured in a trauma situation from dying.”
The University of Pittsburgh previously has collaborated with the University of Colorado and Oregon Health & Science University so these universities will be able to provide the trauma leadership necessary to successfully execute the clinical trial network. The initial study will use five other trauma centers from across the country in additional studies
The Pitt Graduate School of Public Health’s Epidemiology Data Center www.edc.pitt.edu will be the data coordinating center, while the Multidisciplinary Acute Care Research Organization www.ccm.pitt.edu/macro at Pitt will be the clinical coordinating center.
According to Frank X. Guyette M.D Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Pitt’s School of Medicine and Co-Principal Investigator of LITES, “The LITES Network will allow us to study the continuum of trauma care from the first emergency medical services contact through the emergency department and then on to operating rooms and intensive care units.”