Recruitment Recruitment has passed the 100 mark and now stands at 106 patients. As you can see below, several new centres have recently joined. We were fortunate to have a stand at the BOA conference in Glasgow last week to help promote the trial and distribute details of each participating centre. The major recruitment challenge is finding eligible patients and at a local level it would be helpful if every centre can think of ways to widen referral channels, e.g. by giving talks about ACTIVE to GPs and consultants (power-point presentation available on request). Funded by the MRC AUTOLOGOUS CHONDROCYTE TRANSPLANTATION/IMPLANTATION VERSUS EXISTING TREATMENTS ISCRCTN NEWSLETTER October 2006 Issue 11 Number of patients randomised DMEC Meeting Our Data Monitoring & Ethics Committee chaired by Prof. Hamish Simpson met last month. Generally the DMEC was satisfied with the trial and happy for it to continue. A more realistic recruitment target was proposed for recruiting 600 patients over 5 years instead of 3 years. This target will still require the monthly recruitment rate to more than double – from approx. 5 patients to 12 patients a month. Additional procedures By now some ACTIVE patients have had their 1 year follow-up and about 5 patients have had an additional procedure since their trial treatment. Co-ordinators have been sent a special form for recording any additional procedures which might for example include an arthroscopy to shave the periosteum / membrane, or, as in a couple of cases a uni-compartmental knee replacement. A note on “Intention to treat” Sometimes additional defects are only discovered at the time of surgery and when this happens the planned trial treatment may not be appropriate for the patient. If this happens the patient stays in the trial and is followed up in the normal way so that the data can be included and analysed as part of the intended treatment group. 6 th Oswestry Cartilage Symposium We are all set for the conference on 9 th - 10 th November with an exciting line up of speakers and the course dinner to look forward to at The Walls restaurant in Oswestry. As you can see on the enclosed programme we have a slot for ACTIVE centres to contribute to the discussion at 2.40 pm on the Thursday. If you haven’t yet registered please complete the enclosed form. Bursaries are available to help support ACTIVE assessors & co-ordinators to attend. Erica Wilkinson can help book accommodation. Look forward to seeing you there. Best wishes, Heather

Study day for ACTIVE assessors I’m very aware that we still haven’t had a special study day for ACTIVE assessors. If you are an assessor and would like to attend a study day at Oswestry please let me know and I will arrange a date for this summer. If you think two trips to Oswestry is too much in one year then I urge you to at least attend the conference as there will be much going on of interest to you. I look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes, Heather