Studies

By participating in drug, medical device, non-interventional studies, clinical registries, and investigator-initiated studies, we significantly advance research in thoracic surgery, pulmonology, and oncology. Our goal is to expand current knowledge and to test and evaluate new forms of therapy under controlled conditions.

Types of Studies

Fundamentally, a distinction must be made between retrospective and prospective studies. Retrospective investigations involve the analysis of existing data, such as retrieving data from existing patient records or measurements on collected tumor samples.

Prospective investigations, on the other hand, plan the collection of specific data in the future and evaluate it after the completion of the study period. This is the case, for example, when all tumor samples from the following year are examined for the presence of a characteristic, and the subsequent fate of these patients is then tracked.

A special form of prospective studies are so-called interventional studies, which aim to determine the effectiveness of a medical intervention (e.g., a new drug). In these studies, only a portion of the patients receives the new drug, while the others receive standard therapy. By observing the further course of the disease in all patients, it is then possible to determine whether the new drug is better (or worse) than the previous standard. To ensure a good and fair comparison, it must be ensured that other influencing factors (e.g., age, disease stage, motivation) are evenly distributed in both groups. This is best achieved through “randomization,” meaning the random assignment of each patient to one of the two groups.

All studies that collect patient identity (so-called “personal data”) require the prior and informed consent of the patient, who can withdraw it at any time. This applies particularly to interventional studies, where the type of therapy is determined by the study. This occasionally leads to uncertainty among patients or third parties (“guinea pigs”) due to the suspicion of misuse. Sufficient clarification and thus transparency can counteract this. It is important in this context that these studies may only be conducted with the consent of the fully informed patient, and that they also require review and approval by an independent ethics committee. Data is only forwarded to the study center in anonymized form. Patient insurance is routinely taken out.

The concern that patients receiving standard therapy would be treated worse must be countered by the fact that comparisons are only ethically justifiable if one does not know which therapy is better. Furthermore, one would not undertake the effort of a study if it were already known that the new therapy is superior to the old one.