WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.--Wake Forest University School of Medicine has been selected as the national coordinating center for a major study aimed at preventing cardiovascular disease in diabetes. The study will involve 10,000 patients and last at least nine years.
And the school will serve as a clinical center network in the study, coordinating 10 clinics in five states. Two are in Winston-Salem--at the General Clinical Research Center at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and at Reynolds Health Center.
The study will try to determine whether the cardiovascular complications of Type 2 diabetes, also known as adult-onset diabetes, can be reduced through aggressive control of glycemia, or high blood sugar, as well as aggressive control of high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. Each patient will be followed for at least four years.
The combined value of the two separate contracts with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) totals $22.7 million, one of the largest projects in the school's history. According to NHLBI, the national cost of the project exceeds $96.7 million.
Robert Byington, Ph.D., professor of public health sciences and head of the Section on Epidemiology, will head the national coordinating center of the study, called Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Diabetes Mellitus.
David C. Goff Jr, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of public health sciences (epidemiology) and internal medicine (general internal medicine), will direct the clinical center network, which will recruit 1,380 of the 10,000 patients in southeastern clinics.
"This is the most important clinical trial ever done addressing the prevention of heart disease in people with diabetes," Goff said. "The results of this trial will affect the treatment of millions of patients with diabetes for decades to come."
In addition to the clinics here, the network will include clinic
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Contact: Robert Conn
rconn@wfubmc.edu
336-716-4587
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center
12-Oct-1999