ePRIME: Patient-Reported AEs in Early Phase Trials

New treatments are continually being developed to help patients living with advanced cancer, which require extensive clinical trials before authorisation for standard clinical use. Reporting of adverse events (AE) in this setting is essential to ensure treatment safety and tolerability. The current system for reporting AEs, the Common Toxicity Criteria and Adverse Events (CTCAE) relies on the clinician's interpretation of patient symptoms, but a substantial body of evidence suggests clinicians miss/underestimate AEs experienced by patients. The aim of the overall project is to explore the implementation of an electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) system to gather adverse events data in early phase clinical trials (EPCT) patients. In Phase 1 of this study, through semi-structured interviews, we explored patient, healthcare, and clinical trial staffs' views about collecting electronic patient-reported outcomes in this setting. This work informed the direction of the current pilot. This proof-of-principle feasibility study will explore the feasibility and satisfaction with using an electronic system to remotely self-report AEs whilst on EPCT. The key objectives are to:

1. Evaluate the feasibility of using a secure online method (ePRIME system) to collect PRO-AEs in EPCT patients.
2. Explore patient satisfaction with the use of the ePRIME system to collect PRO AEs in EPCT patients.
3. Monitor the number of notifications for severe AEs generated by the system to address concerns from the interviews that ePROs will lead to increased workload.

To this end, a prospective longitudinal pilot will be conducted of the ePRIME system in early phase clinical trial patients in Leeds and Sheffield. A convenience sample of patients enrolled in Phase I or Phase II trials will be recruited. Patients in general oncology and haematology clinics will be included if diagnosed with metastatic or progressive disease and are presently receiving novel agents in an academic early phase clinical trial, such as chemotherapy, targeted agents, or chemo-radiotherapy. Patients will be included in this pilot whether the trial is a test of a novel drug, drug combination, or dose escalation. The study will aim to identify, approach, and consent all eligible patients over a minimum of a 12 month period. If they are over 18, able to give informed consent, have access to internet via any device, and able to read and understand English. Patients will be approached and consented within 1 month of having been entered in the clinical trial. Patients will not be eligible if they will be on the clinical trial for less than 3 months. Each patient will complete a patient-reported AE checklist at baseline (i.e. time of consent) and then weekly for 12 weeks. At the end of the 12 weeks an end-of-study interview will be conducted to explore patient satisfaction with the system. It is envisaged that this project will provide initial information on the feasibility and acceptability of a novel electronic system to facilitate the collection of patient-reported AEs in early phase trials.