AIDS TREATMENT NEWS No. 116 - December 7, 1990
John S. James
This service, called Trials Search, differs from other clinical-trial information systems now in use. For example, the government- sponsored AIDS Clinical Trials Information Service provides a free telephone number (800/TRIALS-A) which anyone can call to ask questions about clinical trials in their area. However, the 800/TRIALS-A system is not set up to accept a patient's medical profile and automatically match the trials against it. Another computerized trials system, running at San Francisco General Hospital, keeps a database of potential volunteers and searches that database when one of its trials needs subjects. But in this system, volunteers sign up and do not know when (or if) they will be contacted; the Trials Search system, by contrast, operates at the potential volunteer's initiative, and provides a list of possible trials immediately. We do not know of any other service which does this.
To use Trials Search, the patient fills out a one-page form, indicating past and present opportunistic infections (from a list of 20), past and present treatments (from a list of 18) and present laboratory-test values (nine are requested: T-helper count, white blood count, hematocrit, etc.; patients can obtain the values from their physician's office). This simplified medical history includes the most important information used in the inclusion and exclusion criteria for most clinical trials. Trials Search cannot, of course, tell for sure whether a patient will qualify for entry into a particular study; only the researchers running each trial can make that decision. But Trials Search can rule out the great majority of trials for which the person could not possibly qualify. (In the San Francisco area, about 80 clinical trials are currently running; Trials Search typically locates about ten to 15 of these, on the average, for each client.)
The patient's medical form, which can be anonymous, is mailed or taken in person to Trials Search. It takes only about a minute for a trained operator to enter the patient's information, and the computer then prints a list of likely trials. There is a small fee for this service: no more than $7. per search, with reduced rates for persons with low income. This fee pays approximately a third of the cost of running Trials Search, which has also received small grants from the Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights, from AT&T, and from an anonymous individual. The project's organizers hope to acquire more substantial funding, after usage of the system proves that it is meeting a need.
If medical centers in other areas want to install this system, it would be technically easy because the only equipment needed is a Macintosh computer with a laser printer. There is no telephone or network connection to any other system. Little computer expertise would be required. However, no decision has yet been made about whether to distribute the software; and documentation would need to be written to instruct personnel at other medical centers on how to install and operate the system.
Trials Search is now open for persons with AIDS or HIV (in San Francisco or elsewhere) who want to find out about San Francisco area trials for which they may qualify. For more information, call Jay Seward, at the Institute for HIV Research and Treatment of Davies Medical Center, 415/565-6368, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays except Wednesdays.
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