Feedback from Parkinson’s Patients Can Help Improve Trial Recruitment, Retention, Study Says
Getting the perspective of Parkinson’s disease patients on their motivations and experiences participating in clinical trials can help increase recruitment and retention of future studies, a report suggests.
Although preventable, one of the most common reasons Phase 2 or 3 trials fail is because not enough patients participate. This could be due to inadequate recruitment or because patients drop out during the trial.
The report, “Recruitment and Retention in Clinical Trials of Deep Brain Stimulation in Early-Stage Parkinson’s Disease: Past Experiences and Future Considerations,” published in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease, evaluated patient responses after a pilot study on the safety and tolerability of subthalamic (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) for the treatment of early-stage Parkinson’s disease.
DBS is commonly used to treat patients with advanced Parkinson’s who no longer respond to available medications and are unable to adequately manage their symptoms.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also recently expanded the use of DBS — which requires surgery to implant a device to stimulate targeted regions of the brain — to patients with mid-stage disease who also respond poorly to standard medications.
Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, completed a clinical trial (NCT00282152) that included 30 patients, ages 50 to 75, with early-stage Parkinson’s disease. The participants were randomized to receive either optimal drug therapy (ODT) or ODT plus STN-DBS and followed for two years.
At the end of this pilot study, participants were asked to complete a survey regarding their experiences participating in the trial. Their responses were compared with those from an independent survey that used Fox Insight, an online clinical study platform established by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, to survey early-stage Parkinson’s patients who were considering possibly participating in a trial for DBS.
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The pilot trial was specifically designed to collect preliminary safety and tolerability data necessary to conduct an FDA-approved Phase 3 trial (IDE#G050016) to investigate the hypothesis that DBS in patients with early Parkinson’s can slow disease progression.
Importantly, patient experiences were expected to inform the feasibility of scaling up recruitment for the future trial.
Results revealed that the primary motivation for participating in a clinical trial was the desire to advance medical research, cited by 85% of trial respondents. This was followed by a desire for the best medical treatment, for 70%, and for 59%, a desire to learn more about Parkinson’s disease. Similarly, altruistic motivations were also seen in the Fox Insight survey.
The most frequently listed fear that could impact trial participation was surgery-related concerns, in 44% of participants. Although 37% of the pilot study participants did not report any burdens, the most common burdens associated with clinical trials were financial commitments such as time off work and traveling costs (30%), as well as some of the therapeutic interventions such as neuropsychological testing (26%), and the weeklong therapeutic washout periods — without medication (26%).
The pilot study implemented a rigorous informed consent progress aimed at educating potential participants on their role in the study. Most participants responded positively to this approach. Providing sufficient education at the start of the trial may decrease the drop-out rate. In fact, only 3% of participants did not complete the study. As a result, this approach of informed consent will be used in the upcoming Phase 3 trial, according to the authors.
Getting patient perspectives is a new strategy that could improve clinical trial recruitment and retention. Whereas most clinical trials were solely designed by physicians, now, as the authors suggest, by asking patients about their experiences and including their feedback in trial development, “the focus shifts away from the physician and toward the patient.”
“By understanding the motivations and barriers to trial participation of past and potential subjects, we attempt to predict feasibility of recruitment in the future pivotal trial,” the authors wrote. “The fundamental similarities of these two cohorts of patients with early-stage [Parkinson’s disease] suggest that the planned multicenter, pivotal trial will experience similarly successful recruitment and retention as the single-center pilot trial.”
