A coordinating center in a clinical trial: the Hypertension Detection and Followup Program

Multicenter clinical trials are often larger and more complex than other methods of clinical inquiry. They tend to involve a number of research or clinical centers and several formal committees. In many of these trials a coordinating center is one of the participating organizational units. This article describes one such coordinating center, that of the Hypertension Detection and Follow-up Program (HDFP). In 1971 the HDFP Coordinating Center was established to assist in planning and implementing this National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)-sponsored, multicenter, community-based, randomized, controlled clinical trial. The HDFP Coordinating Center is a large, intricate organization comprised of personnel who perform a wide variety of functions. From 1972 to 1979 it supervised the adherence to a common protocol among the cooperating centers and reported the Program's progress to the various monitoring and review committees, the Steering Committee, and the NHLBI Program Office. The Program screened approximately 159,000 persons ages 30 to 69 years, identifying and following 10,940 hypertensive participants. It has been the responsibility of this Coordinating Center to institute, coordinate, and monitor the data-gathering activities of the study as a whole and to process, store, and analyze the large, multifaceted set of data that were collected.