Mrs Elizabeth Brettell BSc

Mrs Elizabeth Brettell

Department of Applied Health Sciences
Trials Management Team Leader, BCTU

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 415 9130
Fax
+44 (0)121 415 9135
Email
e.a.brettell@bham.ac.uk
Address
Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit (BCTU)
Institute of Applied Health Research
College of Medical and Dental Sciences
Robert Aitken Institute

Elizabeth Brettell is Trials Management Team Leader at the Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit (BCTU), where she has worked since 1998 co-ordinating large randomised controlled clinical trials in Alzheimer’s Disease, Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, women’s health and renal disease.

Qualifications

  • BSc Hons (Tech.) in Applied Biology, Cardiff University, 1994

Biography

Elizabeth qualified with a BSc Hons (Tech.) in Applied Biology from Cardiff University in 1994. She joined the Academic Department of Geriatric Medicine at Selly Oak Hospital as a Research Assistant working on a study assessing the impact of a lifestyle intervention for patients aged over 65 who had been admitted to hospital with myocardial infarction or unstable angina.

Elizabeth has worked at BCTU since 1998 co-ordinating large randomised controlled clinical trials in Alzheimer’s Disease, Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, women’s health and renal disease. She initially co-ordinated the UK multi-centre AD2000 study which assessed the safety and efficacy of donepezil and aspirin in Alzheimer’s disease, the results of which were published in the name of the AD2000 collaborative group in the Lancet in 2004 generating worldwide interest. Elizabeth then managed, administered and co-ordinated the MRC/NCRI Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) trials portfolio. The portfolio included three large international trials, and the annual follow-up of all patients recruited to AML trials over the past thirty years. Elizabeth’s co-ordination of both AD2000 and the AML trials has brought together reliable clinical trial evidence to guide future prescribing practice within the NHS.

Elizabeth then managed the set-up of the new BCTU renal trials portfolio including the ASTRAL, GloMY, ECUSTEC , PEXIVAS, eGFR-C, STOP-ACEi, REPROM and the PREDNOS and PREDNOS 2 trials. She continues to manage and supervise these trials in her role as Trials Management Team Leader, providing trial oversight and bring comprehensive expertise in design and conduct of managing NIHR-funded trials.

Teaching

BCTU Research Methods in Clinical Trials

Research

  • Renal Disease

In her role as Trials Management Team Leader Elizabeth has provided trial oversight and brought comprehensive expertise in design and conduct of managing the following trials in renal disease:

ASTRAL - Angioplasty and STent for Renal Arterial Lesions.

PEXIVAS - An international randomised controlled trial of plasma exchange and glucocorticoid dosing in the treatment of anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibody associated vasculitis.

PREDNOS - Long-term tapering versus standard prednisolone (steroid) therapy for the treatment of the initial episode of childhood nephrotic syndrome: national multicentre randomised double blind trial. 

PREDNOS 2: Short course daily prednisolone therapy at the time of upper respiratory tract infection in children with relapsing steroid sensitive nephrotic syndrome.

ECUSTEC: Eculizumab in Shiga-toxin producing E.Coli Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome (ECUSTEC): A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.

eGFR-C: Accuracy of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) estimation using creatinine and cystatin C and albuminuria for monitoring disease progression in patients with stage 3 CKD: Prospective longitudinal study in a multi-ethnic population.

STOP-ACEi: Multi-centre Randomised Controlled Trial of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme inhibitor (ACEi) / Angiotensin Receptor Blocker (ARB) withdrawal in advanced renal disease.

REPROM: The use of an electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Measure in the Management of Patients with Advanced Chronic Kidney Disease.

  • Abnormal Uterine Bleeding

Elizabeth set-up and co-ordinated the OPT trial which was a randomised controlled trial of Outpatient Polyp Treatment for Abnormal Uterine Bleeding. 

  •  Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML)

Elizabeth administered and co-ordinated the MRC/NCRI AML trials portfolio. This portfolio included AML14, AML15 and AML16.

  • Alzheimer’s disease

Elizabeth was co-ordinator of the AD2000 trial which assessed the safety and efficacy of donepezil and aspirin in Alzheimer’s disease.

Publications

Ceri Rowe, Alice J. Sitch, Jonathan Barratt, Elizabeth A. Brettell, Paul Cockwell, R Neil Dalton, Jon J. Deeks, Gillian Eaglestone, Tracy Pellatt-Higgins, Philip A. Kalra, Kamlesh Khunti, Fiona C. Loud, Frances S. Morris, Ryan S. Ottridge, Paul E. Stevens, Claire C. Sharpe, Andrew J. Sutton, Maarten W. Taal, Edmund J. Lamb, on behalf of the e GFR-C study group. Biological variation of measured and estimated GFR in patients with chronic kidney disease. Kidney International, Volume 96, Issue 2, pages 429-435, August 2019, .

Webb NJ, Woolley RL, Lambe T, Frew E, Brettell EA, Barsoum EN et al. Sixteen-week versus standard eight-week prednisolone therapy for childhood nephrotic syndrome: the PREDNOS RCT. Health Technology Assessment. 2019 Jun 3;23(26):1-109.

Webb NJA, Woolley R, Lambe T, Frew E, Brettell E, Barsoum E et al. Long term tapering versus standard prednisolone treatment for first episode of childhood nephrotic syndrome: Phase III randomised controlled trial and economic evaluation. BMJ. 2019 May 23;365. l1800.

Kyte D, Bishop J, Brettell E, et al. Use of an electronic patient-reported outcome measure in the management of patients with advanced chronic kidney disease: the RePROM pilot trial protocol. BMJ Open 2018;8:e026080.

Lambe T, Frew E, Ives NJ, Woolley RL, Cummins C, Brettell EA, Barsoum EN, Webb NJA; PREDNOS Trial Team. Mapping the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) Generic Core Scales onto the Child Health Utility Index-9 Dimension (CHU-9D) Score for Economic Evaluation in Children. Pharmacoeconomics. 2018 Apr;36(4):451-465.

Rowe C, Barratt J, Brettell EA, Cockwell P, Dalton RN, Deeks JJ, Kalra PA,  Khunti K, Loud F, Ottridge RS,  Pellatt-Higgins T, Sitch AJ, Stevens PE, Sharpe CC, Sutton AJ, Taal MW, Lamb EJ on behalf of the eGFR-C study group. 

Rowe C, Barratt J, Brettell EA, Cockwell P, Dalton RN, Deeks JJ, Kalra PA,  Khunti K, Loud F, Ottridge RS,  Pellatt-Higgins T, Sitch AJ, Stevens PE, Sharpe CC, Sutton AJ, Taal MW, Lamb EJ on behalf of the eGFR-C study group. Focus 2016, National Meeting of the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine, Warwick, UK, April 2016

Natalie Ives, Samir Mehta, Elizabeth Brettell, Marie Valente, Sunil Bhandari. Trials 2015,16(Suppl 2):P62

Sunil Bhandari; Natalie Ives; Elizabeth A. Brettell; Marie Valente; Paul Cockwell; Peter S. Topham; John G. Cleland; Arif Khwaja; Meguid El Nahas; Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation (2016) 31: 255–261.

T Justin Clark, Lee J Middleton, Natalie Am Cooper, Lavanya Diwakar, Elaine Denny, Paul Smith, Laura Gennard, Lynda Stobert, Tracy E Roberts, Versha Cheed, Tracey Bingham, Sue Jowett, Elizabeth Brettell, Mary Connor, Sian E Jones, Jane P Daniels. HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT VOLUME 19 ISSUE 61 JULY 2015 ISSN 1366-5278.

Bhandari S, Ives N, Brettell EA, Valente M, Cockwell P, Topham PS et al. Multicentre randomized controlled trial of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker withdrawal in advanced renal disease: the STOP-ACEi trial. Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation. 2015 Sep 30.

Lamb EJ, Brettell EA, Cockwell P, Dalton N, Deeks J, Harris K et al. The eGFR-C study: Accuracy of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) estimation using creatinine and cystatin C and albuminuria for monitoring disease progression in patients with stage 3 chronic kidney disease - Prospective longitudinal study in a multiethnic population. BMC Nephrology. 2014 Jan 14;15(1). 13.

Gray R, Bentham P, Hills R, Lendon C, Raftery J, Brettell E et al. Lancet. 2004 Jun 26;363:2105-2115. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16499-4