Newsletter 1

Dear study teams,

We are delighted to update you with the first PEARL STUDY newsletter — and will now provide an update to all every couple of weeks now that recruitment has started. It has been a pleasure to meet many of you during the SIVs in recent weeks. The new DeLIVER website is now up and running to we will also post news and updates here: https://deliver.cancer.ox.ac.uk/

We do recognise that the resource situation is still challenging with staff members currently unwell due to the latest COVID wave (and/or exhausted following an incredibly intense couple of years), so Will, Jenni and I would like to extend a huge thank you to all of you for your support in getting the study underway.

As you know, PEARL is the first major prospective trial that aims to develop new biomarkers for HCC early detection in patients with liver cirrhosis — and recruitment at speed really is now an imperative for the study as several years follow up is required to meet the study end points. Andy and James have managed to link the REDCAP database to a bioanalysis portal that can look at recruitment and analyse the data real time, and so we can provide some of this as the study progresses which we hope that you will find stimulating (see graph below). We will also provide a snapshot of site set up progress (see table below), that eventually, once all “green” will change to numbers recruited. We are really on standby now to make the study as easy as possible to recruit to, and welcome feedback in real time of any issues re the study protocol, blood sampling or shipment of samples and we will aim to fix these rapidly.

We would also like to take this opportunity to invite you to a Face to Face study day Wednesday June 8^th in Oxford -PIs, nurses and other key staff all welcome. Please do save the date (with more details to follow). We will reimburse reasonable travel costs and provide a nice lunch!

May we also take this opportunity to congratulate Lynsey Corless on her new position as CRN national hepatology specialty lead (clearly leading by example as Hull is the first site, outside Oxford, to recruit to PEARL!)

Best Wishes

Ellie, Jenni, Will, Andy and James