Research within NIHR Leeds CRF mainly focuses on the early stages of testing new treatments, new techniques or new medical devices, to enable patients to benefit from these advances as quickly as possible. We also run later stage trials, where these require the use of complex or experimental techniques or procedures and extended or specialist monitoring.
Many of our trials are run in collaboration with industry, but our work is also funded by the government or by medical research charities.
Patients and the public are central to our research, both in taking part in our trials and in helping to shape and design them.
Because we carry out research into lots of diseases, the types of trials we conduct can be very different. Most trials focus on administering a new drug, either orally or intravenously, to assess its safe use in patients and its effectiveness at treating a particular disease.
Others are looking at innovative surgical procedures, such as new ways to administer drugs during an operation, or testing new medical devices or new programmes to use with these devices. Still others make use of our very advanced imaging equipment to look at whether scanning patients could replace a more invasive means of diagnosing a condition or assessing recovery.
Our research includes five core specialisms: cardiology (coronary disease, heart disease and heart failure), haematology (cancers of the blood), musculoskeletal (inflammatory arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and orthopaedics), oncology (solid tumour cancers), oral and dental health (conditions affecting the mouth and teeth) and paediatrics (diseases in children).
We also carry out trials in other disease areas including anaesthesia & pain management, dermatology, gastroenterology, infectious diseases and neurology. Across disease sites we work closely with the Leeds Institute for Clinical Trials Research to develop and deliver early clinical trials.