Friday 20 May is International Clinical Trials Day

Friday 20 May is International Clinical Trials Day

International Clinical Trials Day commemorates the day James Lind started his study to determine the cause of scurvy. This is the first recorded controlled clinical trial and changed modern medicine. Around the world International Clinical Trials Day is celebrated to raise awareness of the importance of clinical trials and research in healthcare.

To mark the day the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science have launched improvements to AustralianClinicalTrials.gov.au that will now enable people to:

• Save searches of relevant trials;
• Receive updates about relevant trials; and
• Set up a watch list for individual trials.

These enhancements build on the improvements launched on International Clinical Trials Day 2015 which included:

• The ability to search for all current Australian clinical trials listed on the Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (ANZCTR) and Clinicaltrials.gov, including the ability to search by condition, state, phase of trial and if a trial is recruiting;
• The generation of an automatically populating email to the trial recruitment contact person;
• The ability to print search results; and
• Optimisation for viewing on mobile devices.

AustralianClinicalTrials.gov.au also now includes video clips from clinical trials participants and researchers about their experience of clinical trials. These real stories provide a genuine perspective and can help to inform people who are participating or considering participating in a clinical trial. These inspiring stories include participants in various cancer and MS trials and researchers in Leukaemia, premature babies, cancer and prevention clinical trials.

These enhancements and additions are part of an effort to make AustralianClinicalTrials.gov.au more dynamic, engaging and consumer friendly.

If you have any queries or feedback contact us at ClinicalTrials@nhmrc.gov.au.

For your information we will also be Tweeting on the day from @AustCT using the #clinicaltrialsday.