Serious Adverse Event Reconciliation in Clinical Studies
WHAT IS SERIOUS ADVERSE EVENT (SAE) RECONCILIATION AND WHY IS IT REQUIRED
The aim of Good Clinical Practice (GCP) and Good Pharmacovigilance Process (GVP) is to keep patients at the center of drug development efforts and ensure their safety and wellbeing, while at the same time researching more effective, safer cures for diseases. At the juncture of GCP and GVP is the process of SAE Reconciliation, which ensures that the clinical database and pharmacovigilance database are in sync with each other. Completeness and accuracy of data in these two databases is a significant driver in determining outcomes in a clinical trial, affecting clinical reports and safety reports, data management reports, etc. This blogpost emphasizes the importance of this critical process in order to achieve better outcomes for clinical trial sponsors and patients alike.
KEY STAKEHOLDERS IN THE SAE RECONCILIATION PROCESS
SAE Reconciliation is a group effort by teams that manage the clinical database (i.e., sites, data management), and the safety database (i.e., pharmacovigilance). Support is often required from Clinical Operations in co-ordinating with sites & site personnel in resolving issues that arise, Regulatory in co-ordinating submissions where required, and contract research organizations that may have been contracted by Sponsors in the study
MANUAL VS. AUTOMATED SAE RECONCILIATION
SAE Reconciliation may be a manual or automated process, depending on the size of the study population and the volume of adverse event data in a study. Sponsor personnel, along with their Data Management and Pharmacovigilance teams, agree to a list of fields that would be reconciled during the course of a study, and the frequency at which such reconciliation is to be done. Detailed documents, e.g., Data Management Plans may be prepared to document the process, responsibilities & timelines. Regular meetings may be required for parties to clarify any discrepancies that may arise during the SAE reconciliation process.
FREQUENT CHALLENGES FACED DURING SAE RECONCILIATION AND THEIR REMEDIAL MEASURES
Some frequent challenges include MedDRA version differences, irresolvable discrepancies, disagreement between involved parties, lack of responses from sites, etc. With effective management of the process, and automation tools, where the volumes justify their use, the process efficiency can be maximized, thus bringing about higher accuracy of data across both the databases.
Reference
- Bart Cobert. Reconciliations https://lifesciencescare.hcltech.com/blog/reconciliations/
Reference
- Bart Cobert. Reconciliations Click Here