multicenter

Multicenter refers to activities, studies, or interventions conducted across more than one clinical site or center. This approach is common in clinical research, including trials, observational studies, and registries, and it aims to gather data or deliver interventions from diverse locations rather than at a single institution. The term emphasizes collaboration among multiple independent centers to achieve broader participation and applicability.

The primary rationale for multicenter designs is to increase sample size and diversity, which enhances the generalizability of findings and reduces center-specific biases. By distributing recruitment across several sites, studies can reach appropriate populations more efficiently and may better reflect real-world settings. Multicenter approaches also enable the study of rare conditions or subgroups that would be difficult to enroll at a single site.

Design and management of multicenter work require careful coordination. This typically involves harmonized protocols, standardized data collection instruments, and training across sites. A central coordinating center may manage data, quality assurance, and statistical analysis, while local ethics approvals are obtained as required. Regulatory compliance, data privacy, and adherence to good clinical practice are essential. Statistical planning must account for clustering by site and potential inter-site variability.

Types include multicenter randomized controlled trials, multicenter observational studies, and multicenter patient registries. Benefits include broader applicability and resource sharing; challenges encompass logistical complexity, variation in practice patterns, regulatory differences, data quality, and cost.