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© 2008 The American Thoracic Society doi: 10.1513/pats.200709-154ET The National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT)A Study in Agency Collaboration1 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland; 2 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD; and 3 Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Gail G. Weinmann, M.D., Division of Lung Diseases, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892-7952. E-mail: gweinmann{at}nih.gov ABSTRACT The National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT) was a multicenter, randomized, controlled clinical trial, comparing the efficacy of lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) plus medical management with rehabilitation to medical management with rehabilitation in 1,218 patients with severe emphysema. The NETT was a precedent-setting collaborative effort of three government agencies: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS); the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). NETT provided Medicare beneficiaries with controlled access to a promising but unproven procedure, while scientifically valid data on the efficacy and costs were collected to guide future use, coverage decisions, and policy. NETT demonstrates that collaboration among federal agencies and among health plans, researchers, and providers can successfully fulfill their differing missions simultaneously and is a productive approach to evaluating new treatments of mutual interest.
Key Words: lung volume reduction surgery CMS AHRQ NHLBI
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