Bradford hand eczema study needs more patients

Bradford Teaching Hospitals is part of a national multi-centre study and is looking to recruit more volunteers to add to the 140 already signed up across the country.

Bradford was the first centre to recruit and is by far the best recruiting centre with 22 patients so far, says Dr Miriam Wittmann, Honorary Speciality Doctor in Dermatology at St Luke’s Hospital in the city.

Dr Wittmann is also Chief Investigator on the Alpha project and is an Associate Professor in Inflammatory Skin Diseases at the University of Leeds.

The first Bradford patients have now finished their first-year follow up and there are places available to recruit new patients.

Dr Wittmann worked with a UK-wide team to set up the trial with a £2.1million grant from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)

She said: “We are very pleased with how the trial is going and we are proud that Bradford is leading the way with this research. This is one of the biggest NIHR dermatological interventional studies to date.”

Internationally it is also the first trial on chronic hand eczema with a long term follow up, she said and added: “It is an important study because it will provide us with the data needed to better treat patients with this debilitating condition who want their life back. Patients suffering from severe hand eczema which is resistant to cream treatment have real difficulties in managing their jobs and family life and often have to give up hobbies or even re-train for different jobs.”

The study includes patients who have failed to respond to topical steroid treatment and is looking to recruit more than 500 patients nationally with the Bradford centre hoping to sign up another eight before the end of next March.

Anyone interested in finding out more, visit medhealth.leeds.ac.uk/info/423/skin/1773/welcome_to_the_alpha_clinical_trial_ or contact the dermatology study team at St Luke’s Hospital by emailing jennifer.ott@bthft.nhs.uk.

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