scholarly journals Reversing the Tide: Improving the Recruitment of Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Clinical Trials in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Parakkal Deepak

Abstract While the number of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) clinical trials has been increasing, there is decreasing participation in these trials with under-representation of younger patients and those with milder disease and in community settings. Innovative methods to increase recruitment and participation through the use of social media tools, apps, electronic medical record-based patient finding algorithms, and remote monitoring methods are suggested.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emamuzo Otobo ◽  
Christopher Park ◽  
Jason Rogers ◽  
Farah Fasihuddin ◽  
Shashank Garg ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Issues with patient recruitment and enrollment are the primary barriers for missed clinical trial timelines; 8 out of 10 clinical trials are delayed or unable to be completed because of lack of timely patient recruitment. Current patient recruitment efforts are inefficient and time-consuming, since they are typically dependent on manually screening patients during face-to-face visits to the clinic or hospital. With the rapid development of digital communication platforms within health care and the broad consumer adoption of smartphones, there are increasing opportunities to overcome some of these barriers. These platforms have particularly great potential for research and clinical care of chronic conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an often debilitating disease which currently affects over three million adults in the United States. OBJECTIVE To integrate and utilize a digital medicine platform to improve patient recruitment and enrollment processes in clinical trials. METHODS Patients enrolled in the Mount Sinai Crohn’s and Colitis Registry (MSCCR) were remotely approached about enrolling in a mindfulness study for IBD patients. A text-based clinical rules engine was used to inform registry patients about the trial and to allow patients to indicate interest in participating via text message. Eligible IBD patients were bulk “prescribed” a notification through RxHealth’s digital medicine platform, RxUniverse. Characteristics of the enrolled population, characteristics of patients who responded, and timeliness of responses were analyzed. RESULTS Of the 1364 patients in the MSCCR with available phone numbers, 270 patients affirmatively replied they wanted to participate in to the study. Patients who opted into receiving more information about the study were more likely to have inadequate control of their IBD (25.64% vs 18.97%; P<.05) and more likely to have a recent history of depression based on a validated patient health questionnaire (15.38% vs 8.4%; P<.05) than those who opted out. Furthermore, patients who opted in tended to be younger, were more likely to be female, and less likely to have ulcerative colitis, though these trends did not reach statistical significance. Patient race did not significantly differ between those who opted in and opted out. In terms of timeliness of response among those enrolled, the majority of patients responded within 2 hours of notification. CONCLUSIONS Digital medicine software platforms can facilitate large-scale, lower-effort recruitment of eligible patients for clinical trials. Future research should be done to explore their expanded use for recruitment, patient education, and study data collection. Additional technologies such as patient-powered networks, social media, e-recruiting bots, and other remote engagement platforms can aid clinical trials by saving time and reducing costs of patient recruitment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S7-S7
Author(s):  
Farah Fasihuddin ◽  
Nicole Wedel ◽  
Ashish Atreja ◽  
Divya Madisetty ◽  
Charu Madhwani Jain ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Issues with patient recruitment and enrolment are the primary barriers for missed clinical trial timelines; 8 out of 10 clinical trials are delayed or unable to be completed because of the lack of timely patient recruitment. Current patient recruitment efforts are inefficient as they are typically dependent on the manual screening of patients during face-to-face visits. With the rapid development of digital communication platforms within healthcare and the broad consumer adoption of smartphones, there are increasing opportunities to overcome some of these barriers. Digital platforms have great potential for research and clinical care of chronic conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an often debilitating disease that currently affects over three million adults in the United States. In this paper, we utilized a digital medicine platform (Trialengage, Rx.Health, New York, NY) to improve patient recruitment for an ongoing mindfulness trial which had limited success in face-face enrolment (16 patients over 6 months). Methods Patients enrolled in the Mount Sinai Crohn’s and Colitis Registry (MSCCR) were remotely outreached about enrolling in a mindfulness study for IBD patients. A text-based clinical rules engine was used to inform registry patients about the trial and to allow patients to indicate interest in participating via text message. Eligible IBD patients were bulk “prescribed” a notification through RxHealth’s digital medicine platform, RxUniverse. Characteristics of the enrolled population, characteristics of patients who responded, and timeliness of responses were analyzed. Results Of the 1364 patients in the MSCCR with available phone numbers, 270 patients affirmatively replied they wanted to participate in the study. Patients who opted-in to receiving more information about the study were more likely to have inadequate control of their IBD (25.64% vs 18.97%; P&lt;.05) and more likely to have a recent history of depression based on a validated patient health questionnaire (15.38% vs 8.4%; P&lt;.05) than those who opted-out. There were no significant differences in terms of race, gender, and age between the two groups. In terms of timeliness of response among those enrolled, the majority of patients responded within 2 hours of notification. Conclusion Digital medicine software platforms can facilitate large-scale, lower-effort recruitment of eligible patients for clinical trials. Future research should be done to explore their expanded use for recruitment, patient education, and study data collection. Additional technologies such as patient-powered networks, social media, e-recruiting bots, and other remote engagement platforms can aid clinical trials by saving time and reducing costs of patient recruitment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cole Johnson ◽  
Edward L Barnes ◽  
Xian Zhang ◽  
Millie D Long

Abstract Background and Aims There are currently several recruitment challenges in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which prolong the drug approval process and affect the generalizability of study results. The purpose of this study is to characterize individuals who participate in IBD RCTs and identify factors that could influence future recruitment strategies. Methods We performed a cross-sectional study within the IBD Partners cohort comparing patients with current or prior participation in an RCT of medical therapy for IBD to those without any RCT participation. Bivariate statistics were used to compare RCT participation by IBD subtype and by other demographic and disease characteristics, and predictive modeling was used to identify factors predictive of RCT participation. We calculated the percent of the cohort that participated in an RCT during each calendar year from 2011 to 2018 and accessed Clinicaltrials.gov to determine the number of active RCTs for IBD therapies per year during that same period. Results A total of 14,747 patients with IBD were included in the analysis and 1116 (7.6%) reported RCT participation at any time. Demographic factors predictive of RCT participation included following at an academic institution [odds ratio (OR) = 1.8; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.51–2.04) and age 36–75 (OR = 1.7; 95% CI 1.46–1.92). Patients with Crohn’s disease were more likely to participate than those with ulcerative colitis (OR = 1.5; 95% CI 1.35–1.77). Patients with more severe disease were more likely to participate, including those with prior IBD-related hospitalization (OR = 2.6; 95% CI 2.19–2.99), IBD-related surgery (OR = 2.5; 95% CI 2.24–2.87), biologic exposure (OR = 3.2; 95% CI 2.76–3.65), and “Poor” or worse quality of life (OR = 1.7; 95% CI 1.45–1.93). Steroid-free remission was associated with a lower likelihood of RCT participation (OR = 0.6; 95% CI 0.53–0.70). Although the number of active RCTs for IBD more than doubled between 2011 and 2018, RCT participation rates during that same time period decreased from 1.1% to 0.7% of the cohort. Conclusions RCT participation declined within this cohort. Groups underrepresented in RCTs for IBD included younger patients, patients followed in community settings, and patients with more mild disease. The non-RCT group had mean disease activity scores that did not meet remission thresholds, demonstrating populations in need of alternate therapies for whom clinical trials could be an option. Given anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) exposure rates in this national cohort, studies should focus on anti-TNF failure populations. Investigators should make every effort to offer RCTs to all patients and network with community providers to increase awareness of RCTs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maliha Naseer ◽  
Shiva Poola ◽  
Syed Ali ◽  
Sami Samiullah ◽  
Veysel Tahan

The incidence, prevalence, and cost of care associated with diagnosis and management of inflammatory bowel disease are on the rise. The role of gut microbiota in the causation of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis has not been established yet. Nevertheless, several animal models and human studies point towards the association. Targeting intestinal dysbiosis for remission induction, maintenance, and relapse prevention is an attractive treatment approach with minimal adverse effects. However, the data is still conflicting. The purpose of this article is to provide the most comprehensive and updated review on the utility of prebiotics and probiotics in the management of active Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis/pouchitis and their role in the remission induction, maintenance, and relapse prevention. A thorough literature review was performed on PubMed, Ovid Medline, and EMBASE using the terms “prebiotics AND ulcerative colitis”, “probiotics AND ulcerative colitis”, “prebiotics AND Crohn's disease”, “probiotics AND Crohn's disease”, “probiotics AND acute pouchitis”, “probiotics AND chronic pouchitis” and “prebiotics AND pouchitis”. Observational studies and clinical trials conducted on humans and published in the English language were included. A total of 71 clinical trials evaluating the utility of prebiotics and probiotics in the management of inflammatory bowel disease were reviewed and the findings were summarized. Most of these studies on probiotics evaluated lactobacillus, De Simone Formulation or Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 and there is some evidence supporting these agents for induction and maintenance of remission in ulcerative colitis and prevention of pouchitis relapse with minimal adverse effects. The efficacy of prebiotics such as fructooligosaccharides and Plantago ovata seeds in ulcerative colitis are inconclusive and the data regarding the utility of prebiotics in pouchitis is limited. The results of the clinical trials for remission induction and maintenance in active Crohn's disease or post-operative relapse with probiotics and prebiotics are inadequate and not very convincing. Prebiotics and probiotics are safe, effective and have great therapeutic potential. However, better designed clinical trials in the multicenter setting with a large sample and long duration of intervention are needed to identify the specific strain or combination of probiotics and prebiotics which will be more beneficial and effective in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.


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