Tuesday, January 14, 2025
1/14/2025
Project Summary For the last 21 years, The University of Texas-Houston (UTH) has been a vital part of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units (MFMU) Network. We have always been committed to the mission to garner unbiased data. With upward of 3.6 million annual deliveries in this country, the need for prospectively collected data from multiple centers or randomized clinical trials (RCT) remains of the utmost importance. The need for a research consortium of this nature has never been more crucial; a fact made evident during our recent COVID-19 pandemic. Because of our long history within the MFMU network, we have developed and refined the necessary infrastructure and research skills to be successful. The UTH research team has a combined research experience of over 80 years and abundant clinical knowledge with over 100 years of working on labor and delivery. Prioritizing participation in the Network is ingrained in our Division. Our Chair, MFM Division Director, and Fellowship Director have all served as Network PI and alternate PIs. Within our Division, we have a combined 40-year experience as PI or alternate PI. Our center consistently ranks among the top sites in the percentage of patients enrolled from the eligible pool. Currently, we recruit from 3 hospitals, with upwards of 11,000 combined births annually including over 75% from underrepresented minorities. Our follow-up rates have consistently exceeded 90% for pre-planned long-term studies. To further cement our value as a member of the Network, we continue to demonstrate great academic productivity. Since 2018, we have published over 260 peer-reviewed articles, congruent with the MFMU Network’s aims. In the last five years, UTH faculty and Fellows have published 15 RCT, with two-thirds of the trials being multi-centered. One of these trials (Dinis J et al. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2020) served as the basis for the recently completed Network trial— Prescription After Cesarean Trial (PACT). Our faculty and fellows continue to be active in proposing primary proposals to the Network and suggesting hypothesis-generating secondary analyses from existing MFMU data. Independent of the Network, we continue to publish secondary analyses, and our MFM Fellows and faculty are conducting several RCTs that do not interfere with current ongoing MFMU trials. We remain committed to the MFMU network by ensuring proper conduct of the studies, maintaining our performance ranks in the top half in all aspects, and aiming to continually improve the rates of eligible people randomized, follow-up, and data quality metrics.
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