TrialCheck®, winner of 2008 Consumer
Health World Award "Best in Show," is the country’s most up-to-date source of
cancer clinical trial information. This free on-line navigation and matching
system links patients, caregivers and the health care community to unbiased
cancer clinical trials.
Introduced in 2001 by the Coalition, TrialCheck® is the most frequently updated
searchable database of cancer clinical trials. TrialCheck® maps relevant cancer
trials to patients homes by filtering information such as type of cancer, zip
code and other criteria.
TrialCheck® is a highly flexible resource that has been customized to include
trials defined by specific disease site, geographic area, or performance
site/hospital.
The system pools together information from multiple databases for all federally
registered cancer clinical trials, both publicly and privately sponsored.
Real-time daily quality control processes ensure that the information is
accurate and reliable.
TrialCheck® Phone Support
Telephone assistance in finding a cancer clinical trial using TrialCheck® is
available at 1-877-227-8451 via collaboration with the American Cancer Society,
which uses TrialCheck® as their exclusive search engine for all cancer clinical
trials.
TrialCheck® Site Integration and Report Capabilities
The Coalition offers to tailor the TrialCheck® software and trial
data so that it can interface with other organizations’ specific cancer
clinical research activities.
Clients include public health departments, health care technology companies,
health care practices and institutions, advocacy and other nonprofit
organizations, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies, all whom share the
same altruistic mission: to streamline and accelerate physician and patient
enrollment into cancer clinical trials.
Tailored products include:
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Technological Integration -
TrialCheck® can be customized with specific information displays and
user interfaces to include geographic location, hospital or facility, disease
and protocol. It can be integrated into a Web site as well as an existing
software system.
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Clinical Software - TrialTracker
electronically tracks clinical trial screening, eligibility and enrollment for
patients being served.
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Reporting Services -
Ability to run automated reports on trials within the database such as by
cooperative group, hospital/institution/practice, type of cancer, drug, etc.
providing a full picture of the cancer clinical trial landscape.
TrialTracker, Web-based system
Track Local Screening, Eligibility and Enrollment at the Patient Level
TrialCheck®'s TrialTracker helps to thoroughly monitor your
patients. It is a cancer clinical trial screening log that enables healthcare
professionals to track cancer clinical trial screening, eligibility, and
enrollment of patients participating in studies at a specific performance site
or hospital.
TrialTracker utilizes TrialCheck's screening questionnaire to easily identify
trials that may be appropriate for each individual patient. This online tool
allows healthcare professionals to keep a log of patients that are screened for
studies at a specific performance site or hospital. TrialTracker records if a
patient is eligible or not eligible for a study. In addition, it captures if
the patient does or does not enroll in a specific study.
Easy Access to Patient Information
Healthcare professionals can utilize TrialTracker to run aggregate reports on
screening, enrollment, and eligibility information. Reports can provide
significant information about trial history and about healthcare professional
activity in the trial screening process. These reports can also identify trends
that can provide insight into potential trial modifications to enhance accrual.
For more information on TrialTracker, please contact the Coalition at
Info@CancerTrialsHelp.org
TrialCheck® Collaborators
TrialCheck® is an Internet-based cancer clinical trial navigation
and matching system of all federally registered cancer clinical trials, whether
publicly or privately funded. It is considered to be one of the most reliable
cancer clinical trial services in the U.S. and is the exclusive clinical trial
search engine option for the American Cancer Society and The Leukemia &
Lymphoma Society.
TrialCheck® was created by the non-profit Coalition of Cancer
Cooperative Groups to support patients, caregivers, health care professionals,
advocates and researchers in exploring cancer clinical trials as a potential
cancer treatment option.
2) Where does the TrialCheck® clinical trial
information come from?
TrialCheck® contains information on all federally registered cancer
clinical trials, whether publicly or privately funded. Its data is gathered
from the National Institutes of Health’s
www.clinicaltrials.gov, the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Physician
Data Query (PDQ®), the NCI-sponsored cooperative groups, and the pharmaceutical
and biotechnology industries. It features a real-time, Web-service connection.
Daily quality control processes ensure that the information in TrialCheck® is
accurate and reliable.
It received a prestigious Bronze-level certification award from the NCI’s
cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) network as one of the few systems
capable of supporting NCI’s efforts to fully integrate the nation’s cancer
clinical trial databases.
3) How does TrialCheck® work?
Without needing to register or log in, visitors can go to
www.CancerTrialsHelp.org. They are asked a few basic questions on the
patient’s zip code, gender, age, disease type and stage, prior or current
treatment, and cancer impact on daily activity. Instantly, a tailored list of
treatment trials is created that is displayed according to distance in miles
from the specified zip code. Trial information can be easily downloaded for
discussion with a physician regarding the potential for enrollment.
The database also contains prevention, supportive care, quality of life and
other types of trials. If patients or caregivers want to speak to someone about
the search results immediately, they can call the American Cancer Society
National Cancer Information Center. The toll-free number (1-877-227-8451) is
listed on www.CancerTrialsHelp.org.
American Cancer Society specialists also have access to TrialCheck® and are
available 24-7 to navigate people through the process of locating a clinical
trial. With the help of TrialCheck®-related trial tracking software, the team
of specialists continue to provide navigation and follow-up, which can span
from the initial days of a caller’s inquiry, through weeks and sometimes years
of follow-on support.
4) Are there other ways to gain access to TrialCheck®?
Yes. In addition to www.CancerTrialsHelp.org,
TrialCheck® can be accessed through the Web sites of a variety of
other organizations including: the American Cancer Society, The Leukemia and
Lyphoma Society, the American Society of Clinical Oncolgy and WebMD. Additional
linkages are in development.
5) Why is TrialCheck® important for patients
with cancer?
Cancer clinical trials provide state-of-the-art, life-saving care, yet many
cancer patients are not aware of their importance as a potential treatment
option, especially at the time of their diagnosis and throughout the treatment
process when decisions about their cancer treatment are being made. Clinical
trials are often mistakenly thought of as a last resort when all other options
have failed the patient. Studies have shown that as many as 250,000 U.S. cancer
patients would be willing and clinically eligible to participate in clinical
trials if they were made aware of the option (Journal of Clinical Oncology,
Mar 1 2003: 830-835). By providing easier access to clinical trial information,
TrialCheck® gives patients knowledge about an essential treatment option that
is often overlooked, and guides them to hospitals and physicians that provide
cancer clinical trials.
By supporting cancer clinical trial enrollment, TrialCheck® also
helps drive the research engine that produces virtually all cancer treatment
advances.
6) How does TrialCheck® "mainstream"
information for patients?
TrialCheck® gives patients access to the same clinical trial
information that is available to physicians, thereby enabling doctors and
patients to make treatment decisions together.
7) There are other cancer clinical trial databases
accessible via the Internet. Why do patients, caregivers, advocates and others
in the cancer treatment community need TrialCheck®?
Many of the cancer clinical trial resources currently available online are
limited in their ability to help patients, caregivers, advocates and the
general public. Originally developed for researchers, they can be difficult to
navigate and may require a fairly sophisticated knowledge of medical
terminology. The U.S. government’s main registry lists trials for all diseases,
not only cancer, and lacks the level of detail needed to match trials to a
cancer patient’s particular disease and treatment history.
The comprehensive information in TrialCheck® is considered to be the
most reliable in the industry. It is the only nationwide system updated in real
time. A team of clinical experts review the precise eligibility requirements
for all trials before they enter the database to ensure that search queries by
and for patients will produce accurate and reliable customized trial lists.
As a free public service, TrialCheck®'s primary goal is to serve the
best interest of the cancer patient; therefore, the trial information it
contains is comprehensive and unbiased. Its priority is to provide the most
relevant trials available per patient regardless of whether the study is
publicly or privately funded.
In addition, TrialCheck® is a key feature in a robust compendium of
educational resources at www.CancerTrialsHelp.org.
TrialCheck® and these resources provide patients with information that is
practical, empowering and essential in exploring with a physician the
possibility of a clinical trial as a treatment option.
www.CancerTrialsHelp.org clarifies what a cancer clinical trial is,
what it is not, and its potential value to the patient.
8) How is TrialCheck® funded?
TrialCheck® is a free public service to support patients,
caregivers, health care professionals and advocates in exploring cancer
clinical trials as a potential treatment option at time of diagnosis and
throughout the treatment process. The Coalition, a non-profit 501(c)(3) service
organization, receives charitable funding for TrialCheck® and other programs
and services through grants and sponsorships from corporations and foundations,
and membership dues from the cooperative groups. In addition, the organization
offers to tailor the TrialCheck® software for a fee so that it can interface
with other organizations’ specific cancer clinical research activities.
9) Explain the connection between TrialCheck®'s
non-profit status and its unbiased information.
As a non-profit organization, the Coalition provides TrialCheck® at
no charge via www.CancerTrialsHelp.org.
Study sponsors are not charged to list their trials on the database; instead
TrialCheck® pools together all available information on federally registered
studies, regardless of their sponsorship. This ensures that patients receive a
comprehensive list of studies that match their search criteria. This business
model is supported by charitable funding rather than pay-per-view revenue
typical in the for-profit matching services. The Coalition’s approach ensures
that TrialCheck® information is unbiased and non-commercial; trial displays are
not associated with payments from for-profit study sponsors.
10) Does TrialCheck® offer any services to
health care professionals, or is it strictly for patients and caregivers?
The free access to TrialCheck® enables oncology health care
providers to quickly determine whether a patient may be a candidate for a
clinical trial, both within their own institutional setting, or if there is no
trial match for a patient at their own hospital/practice/institution, to find
trials with other oncologists at medical facilities nearby. Thousands of
oncology clinicians are registered users of TrialCheck® because it has the
critical information that is needed to identify trials for their patients.
A diagnosis of cancer is often made by a general physician, who will refer the
patient on to an oncologist for treatment. For referring physicians, the free
TrialCheck® searching provides a similar service, the ability to search within
the oncology research network to find accurate, up-to-date information so that
newly diagnosed patients can be referred to an oncologist nearby who is
offering a trial that may be an appropriate match for the patient.
The Coalition offers to tailor the TrialCheck® software for a fee so
that it can interface with other organizations’ specific cancer clinical
research activities. Through Technical Integration TrialCheck® can be
integrated and customized to trials within the hospital’s geographic region,
the specific facility, and specific diseases and protocols. It can be
integrated into a hospital’s Web site as well as into an existing software
system. With Clinical Software, professionals can electronically track
clinical trial screening, eligibility and enrollment activity information for
their patients. And with Reporting Services, professionals can run
automated reports on trials within the database such as by cooperative group,
hospital/institution/practice, type of cancer, drug, etc.
11) Why is TrialCheck® an Internet-based
system?
More than 73 percent of American adults have access to the Internet and
research shows that 80 percent of those have searched for health care
information (66 percent for a specific disease or medical problem and 51
percent for certain medical treatments or procedures). Of the 80 percent, five
to six percent are so-called acute ePatients, along with their
caregivers. These users – people facing new medical challenges – make up over
50 percent of medical Internet traffic.* These patients go online every day and
conduct exhaustive searches over hundreds of hours. An Internet-based system
ensures that cancer clinical trial information is always accessible and
available to these patients.
There are currently more than 7,000 cancer clinical trials federally registered
in the national database. The information about clinical trials is highly
dynamic both in terms of studies opening to patient enrollment and closing when
enrollment is completed. In addition, information about the hospital and
oncology practices where clinical trials are available is constantly changing.
Only an online, Internet-based service can accommodate this information and be
kept accurate.
* Source: Pew Internet Life Project 2006 and 2000, April 2006
TrialCheck® Contact
For more information on TrialCheck®, contact
the Coalition at Info@CancerTrialsHelp.org
or call 215.789.7038.
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