Il Progetto MasterCohort: Mission
The MASTER (Management of Standardized Evaluation of Retroviral HIV Infection) group is a collaborative network of major Italian clinical Centres involved in care of HIV patients. The mission of this group is to conduct either prospective randomized or observational studies to answer to relevant clinical questions.
Thanks to a common electronic patient file (NetCare™ or Health&Notes™), data are recorded over a standardized time-scale every three months. Merging and data cleaning are performed at a central level every six months.
Through exploratory analysis of a large data-set, relevant research questions are posed, allowing to design proper transitional researches, following the methodology of prospective randomized trials. Moreover, if observational researches are able to answer to the research questions posed by the investigators, the data-base is used to perform such analyses.
Further, the MASTER database is shared with other International cohort (e.g., COHERE), to increase the statistical power, for the sake of specific studies of particular interest.
The main research topics addressed within the frame of the MASTER collaboration are the following:
1. HIV-hepatitis co-infections
2. Infectious (including TB and STD) and non infectious comorbidities
3. Short-term and Long-term toxicity of HAART
4. Clinical and viro-immunological efficacy of HAART
5. Conditions of HIV positive migrants