Protocol for the Tessa Jowell BRAIN MATRIX Platform Study

Gliomas are the most common primary tumour of the central nervous system (CNS), with an estimated annual incidence of 6.6 per 100 000 individuals in the USA and around 14 deaths per day from brain tumours in the UK. The genomic and biological landscape of brain tumours has been increasingly defined and, since 2016, the WHO classification of tumours of the CNS incorporates molecular data, along with morphology, to define tumour subtypes more accurately. The Tessa Jowell BRAIN MATRIX Platform (TJBM) study aims to create a transformative clinical research infrastructure that leverages UK National Health Service resources to support research that is patient centric and attractive to both academic and commercial investors.

The TJBM study is a programme of work with the principal purpose to improve the knowledge of glioma and treatment for patients with glioma. The programme includes a platform study and subsequent interventional clinical trials (as separate protocols). The platform study described here is the backbone data-repository of disease, treatment and outcome data from clinical, imaging and pathology data being collected in patients with glioma from secondary care hospitals. The primary outcome measure of the platform is time from biopsy to integrated histological-molecular diagnosis using whole-genome sequencing and epigenomic classification. Secondary outcome measures include those that are process centred, patient centred and framework based. Target recruitment for the study is 1000 patients with interim analyses at 100 and 500 patients.

The study will be performed in accordance with the recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects, adopted by the 18th World Medical Association General Assembly, Helsinki, Finland and stated in the respective participating countries' laws governing human research, and Good Clinical Practice. The protocol was initially approved on 18 February 2020 by West Midlands - Edgbaston Research Ethics Committee; the current protocol (v3.0) was approved on 15 June 2022. Participants will be required to provide written informed consent. A meeting will be held after the end of the study to allow discussion of the main results among the collaborators prior to publication. The results of this study will be disseminated through national and international presentations and peer-reviewed publications. Manuscripts will be prepared by the Study Management Group and authorship will be determined by mutual agreement.

NCT04274283, 18-Feb-2020; ISRCTN14218060, 03-Feb-2020.