igcs abstract, page-9

as far as the criteria goes for becoming a center, i don't have any facts, but i would assume they would require the necessary equipment to be able to isolate the immature dendrite cells, treat and incubate them etc...OR, this could be a cost incurred by Prima with regards to setting up, i'm not really sure.

They would definitely need to be centres dealing with ovarian cancer, but that is pretty intuitive.

I'm not sure how they will work around having so many centres. clearly they cant send Prima reasearch personnel to all of them, so they will need to train them to do it. Meaning they will need to screen patients for eligibility, collect baseline data, randomize participants, collect denrite cells and culture them etc, administer CVAC or placebo treatments and then re-assess at appropriate timepoints. I wonder how much of this goes through the chief investigators. I wouldn't know, but there needs to be some measure of consistency between all these factors.

eg. if a centre fails to culture dendrites properly, this will obviously produce a lot of patients going through where there is no effect.

Centres signing up wouldn't necessarily mean CVAC is effective, remember that a lot of phase III trials fail to show any effect. This is a disease that is agressive, and so any form of HOPE will give patients/doctors a reason to try it. It is safe, that is known, and so this makes it very palatable to doctors and patients, as it won't cause any harm. REmember, while it is in a trial phase, the treatment is free. ONce it it approved, that is when there are costs involved, so this is a free way for people to get a treatment which is safe, that may or may not work. So i wouldn't take hospitals becoming a registered trial centres as a good sign of the efficacy.