To Evaluate the Preliminary Efficacy of Our Digitally Enhanced CHW-led Intervention in Newly Diagnosed PDAC

May 11, 2026 updated by: Nikhil Thiruvengadam, Loma Linda University

To Evaluate the Preliminary Efficacy of Our Digitally Enhanced CHW-led Intervention in Newly Diagnosed PDAC With a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of 60 PDAC Patients and Their Caregivers Comparing the Intervention to Attention Control With Usual Care.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a community health worker led intervention that helps facilitate palliative care works to treat newly-diagnostic pancreatic cancer. It will also help understand the impact of this intervention on people who are caregivers for patients with pancreatic cancer. The main questions it aims to answer are:

Does the community health worker improve symptoms and quality of life in patients with pancreatic cancer? Does the community health worker improve the burden of caregiving and quality of life in family caregivers? Researchers will compare drug ABC to a control (where patients get the care that patients with pancreatic cancer receive including access to handouts and videos that the investigators provide patients by national organizations) to see if the intervention works to help patients with pancreatic cancer.

Participants will:

Meet with study staff several times over 3 months and complete surveys about their experience and symptoms Patients assigned with the community health worker will meet with them in person or video.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

d. Overall study design

This will be a pilot randomized controlled trial where the investigators will plan on randomizing patients with PDAC in a 1:1 fashion to receive a digitally-enhanced community health worker intervention that will involve visits with the CHW and digital communication to facilitate care navigation and provide early palliative care engagement or usual care.

e. Study Procedures and Schedule

Recruitment of subjects for the study

To recruit patients for the interviews, the investigators will screen all of the patients who present for endoscopic ultrasound (with biopsy) to the endoscopy unit or pre-procedure clinic at Loma Linda, as well as patients referred to the medical or surgical oncology clinics with a new diagnosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The investigators will recruit patients from our gastroenterology clinic and endoscopic unit and the oncology clinic (the researcher's patients) both in person and over the phone via a telephone call. The investigators will not contact patients outside our clinical practice but will distribute an IRB-approved flyer with our number to oncology clinics that patients can call and leave a voicemail or email us at our secure HIPPA-complaint Loma Linda email address assigned to our study (cancerresearch@llu.edu). The investigators will also distribute an IRB-approved letter to other oncologists informing them of the study so they can distribute the flyer to their patients and inform patients who may be candidates for this study. The reason the investigators are including patients with suspected PDAC is to eliminate delays once they receive a diagnosis as patients previously reported a flurry of medical visits in the 2 weeks after diagnosis. However, patients will need to undergo a biopsy and have pathology confirmation before study initiation. Patients found to have other pathology on biopsy than pancreatic adenocarcinoma will be excluded. The investigators will explain the study inperson or over the phone when they are referred for a pancreatic biopsy or for oncologic care for a new diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The investigators will explain that the investigators are recruiting them because they have pancreatic cancer and want to study if a community health worker can help patients like themselves navigate care and engage with palliative care better than the current care that patients receive. If they are interested, they will then be consented using written informed consent at their clinic visit in the clinic or prior to their in-person study visit.

When a patient is diagnosed with PDAC, they receive the diagnosis over the phone and follow-up in clinic. They are referred to medical and surgical oncology and to palliative care for supportive care..

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

60

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Loma Linda, California, United States, 92886
        • Recruiting
        • Loma Linda University Health
        • Contact:
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Nikhil Thiruvengadam, MD

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion criteria:

  • Age 18 to 90
  • English or Spanish-Speaking
  • Diagnosed with Newly-Diagnosed Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma or has a pancreatic mass on CT/MRI with suspected PDAC and is awaiting biopsy.
  • Able to communicate verbally to allow for audio recording to complete an exit interview
  • Must be able to consent

Exclusion criteria:

• Biopsy Does not Confirm Adenocarcinoma of the Pancreas

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Community Health Worker Intervention
They work with the community health worker to monitor symptoms and escalate palliative care visits as needed, receive care navigation and disease education
Behavioral: PAL-CHW-PDAC
The intervention involves meeting with a community health worker who will address quality of life concerns, including physical, spiritual, social, and psychological concerns, help patients schedule visits, and set them up to receive telehealth. They also monitor their symptoms via weekly text messages and receive help managing them. Finally, they help patients complete advanced care planning.
Active Comparator: Attention Control with Usual Care
They receive usual care at our institution, including a referral to palliative care at diagnosis, referrals to oncology and medical oncology, and also the handouts from PANCAN provided in clinic, and access to videos from the National Pancreas Foundation.
Other: Usual Care with Attention Control
This involves usual care at our institution, including referrals to medical oncology, surgical oncology, and palliative care but they also receive attention from the study coordinator completing 3 visits including survey instruments and are provided standard of care written and media-based materials from PANCAN and the National Pancreas Foundation.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
National Comprehensive Cancer Network/Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Hepatobiliary Symptom Index
Time Frame: 12 weeks
This score goes from 0 to 72 with higher scores being better. It measures the symptom burden in pateints with pancreatic, biliary and liver cancers.
12 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Hepatobiliary
Time Frame: 12 weeks
The FACT-Hep score measures quality of life in patients with pancreatic, biliary and liver cancers. The total score ranges from 0 to 180, with higher scores indicating better quality of life.
12 weeks
Preparedness for Caregiving Scale
Time Frame: 12 weeks
The score ranges from 0 to 5 and represents the mean of 8 questions. A higher score is better. It is designed to capture caregiver preparedness.
12 weeks
City of Hope Caregiver QoL Instrument
Time Frame: 12 weeks
This instrument score represents a mean of subscores and ranges from 0 to 10 with a higher score indicating better caregiver QoL
12 weeks
Goal Concordant Care
Time Frame: 12 weeks
This outcome will not be determined quantitatively but rather qualitatively by conducting interviews with the patient and caregiver (only the caregiver if the patient dies prior to 12 weeks). Thematic analyses will be peformed with the goal of identifying if the patient and caregiver feel that the care they received reflected their treatment goals.
12 weeks
National Comprehensive Cancer Network Distress Thermometer for Patients
Time Frame: 12 weeks
This measures psychological distress in pateints and scores from 0 to 10, with a lower score being better, i.e., representing lower levels of psychological distress.
12 weeks
National Comprehensive Cancer Center Distress Thermometer for Caregivers
Time Frame: 12 weeks
This measures psychological distress in caregivers and yields scores from 0 to 10, with lower scores indicating lower levels of psychological distress.
12 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Loma Linda University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

September 1, 2025

Primary Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 6, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 11, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

May 15, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 15, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 11, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 5250314
  • PA230343 (Other Grant/Funding Number: DOD/CDMRP)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

Due to the sensitive nature of personal health information and cancer, the investigators will not share patient data with other researchers.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Pancreatic Cancer, Adult

Clinical Trials on PAL-CHW-PDAC

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Pakistan

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe