Recruiting Cardiovascular patients with direct-to-patient targeting, screening, and engagement support
Patient Recruitment for Cardiovascular Clinical Trials: Understanding Patient Perspectives
Cardiovascular disease is estimated to affect more than 520 million individuals worldwide. In the next 12 months, over 90 Cardiovascular clinical trials will begin, and there are more than 1,000 that are already recruiting participants.
Clinical research plays a crucial part in understanding and approving treatment options for conditions across the therapeutic area. The patient profile is variable based on age, gender, ethnicity, genetics, lifestyle factors, medical history, environmental factors, and psychological factors.
There are five indications that that make up close to half of the planned trial starts and 35% of the trials already recruiting patients: coronary artery disease, heart failure, arrhythmia, stroke, and hypertension. This therapeutic area brief provides a look at the patient profile for each of the five conditions and highlights why Direct-to-Patient advertising is an ideal approach for recruiting patients for clinical research in these conditions.
Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) predominantly affects older adults, becoming more prevalent after age 40 and increasing significantly with advancing age, particularly beyond 65. While men are generally at higher risk for CAD, the gender disparity lessens after women reach menopause. Additionally, individuals of South Asian descent experience higher rates of CAD compared to other ethnicities. Lower socioeconomic status is also commonly linked to an elevated risk of CAD.
Heart Failure affects both men and women, although some types are more common in women, and its prevalence increases with age. Compared to other ethnic groups, African Americans are at a higher risk which is primarily due to higher rates of other cardiovascular and cardiovascular-impacting diseases: hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
Hypertension affects more than a billion people worldwide, and men and women are equally impacted. Hypertension’s prevalence increases with age, primarily due to atrial stiffness and other age-related factors. African Americans have higher rates of hypertension compared to Caucasians and Hispanics, much of this due to genetics and socioeconomic factors.
The most common form of arrhythmia, Atrial Fibrillation, is estimated to affect over 37 million people world wide, and men and women are equally affected. Previous studies have reported a lower AF prevalence among racial and ethnic minorities. While arrhythmias can affect people of all ages, they are more frequently observed in older adults because of aging-related changes in the heart.
Stroke predominantly affects older adults, especially those over 65 years. While men have historically had higher stroke rates than women, this gap has been closing recently. Certain racial and ethnic groups, including African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians, face a higher risk compared to Caucasians, often due to prevalent risk factors like hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
A patient might look for clinical research as a care option to support rehabilitation and long term care outcomes, especially if their recovery is not progressing as expected or desired.
Individuals seeking care for almost all cardiovascular conditions, with the exception of stroke, will begin with their Primary Care Physician (PCP). The PCP will typically refer them to a Cardiologist who will order diagnostic tests, although some PCPs will proactively order diagnostic tests before the referral. From there, the patient might see a Surgeon or Interventional Cardiologist and then begin their treatment regimen. Treatment will range from medication and/or surgical intervention to lifestyle changes for CAD, Hypertension, Heart Failure, and Arrhythmia, and there are similarities across the conditions. Typical lifestyle modifications will include diet, exercise, cessation of smoking, reducing alcohol consumption, and stress management.
The reasons these patients might seek a different treatment pathway are similar across the conditions. Access to new treatments, lower or no cost ongoing monitoring and care, and the potential for better outcomes, especially in chronic conditions.
In individuals with strokes, the diagnostic and treatment paths are different, due to the urgent nature of diagnosis and treatment. Treatment often follows a three-step process: Acute Treatment, Rehabilitation, and Long-Term Management.
Finding potential Cardiovascular clinical trial participants can be challenging, but Direct-to-Patient Advertising as a recruitment approach is powerful in this population.
The conditions reviewed in this brief have been searched, on average, 642,000 times per month for the last year. The search volume for some of the most common symptoms such as chest pain, palpitations, shortness of breath, swelling, weakness, and wheezing, have a average monthly search volume of over 800,000. Potential patients are often turning first to online sources for information and education about their diagnosed or suspected condition as well as side effect management for their existing treatment.
With that activity, an online profile begins to evolve, and by using sophisticated targeting and screening algorithms, Sponsors can put information about clinical research directly in front of people who are already seeking information outside of the traditional physician-led approach.
Direct-to-patient recruitment builds awareness and empowers patients (or their caregivers) to seek best-fit solutions for the condition.
AutoCruitment has recently completed 7 Cardiovascular Studies
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AutoCruitment helps life sciences companies accelerate patient recruitment.
AutoCruitment’s technology-backed, full service, global, direct to patient digital advertising approach targets, recruits, and screens more of the right patients quickly to eliminate the patient recruitment bottleneck. The full clinical trial recruitment and enrollment process is seamless with AutoCruitment’s dedicated Project Management and Site & Patient Engagement teams, transparent, real-time reporting, and a secure user-friendly Patient Management Portal.
AutoCruitment’s patient recruitment platform supports Sponsors, CRO Partners and Research Sites by decreasing time, risk and cost to bring new therapies to market.
