Patients can perform their own clinical trial search, evaluate to see if they meet the preliminary requirements and then reach out to the study team through the contact information that’s listed at the international clinical trial database, www.ClinicalTrials.gov. Here are some tips on how to best match your condition and interest with the research that’s available.

Status

The first search field you need to complete is a question on the status of the study.  If you are searching to see if there is a clinical trial that you would like to participate in then you need to choose, “Recruiting”.   The other options include Not Yet Recruiting, Active Not Recruiting, Completed or Terminated.  “Not Yet Recruiting” means that the details of the study are not finalized so as of yet they can’t recruit participants.  “Active Not Recruiting” means that no more study participants are needed.  “Completed” means that the study has finished recruiting, administering the therapy, and monitoring the patients.  “Terminated” means just that – for perhaps safety or other reasons, the clinical trial is shut down.

Condition or Disease

The next step is to type in the condition or disease such as macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy or glaucoma.  To refine your search even better, use more specific terms like dry macular degeneration or wet macular degeneration.

Country

Choose which country you want.  If you select the United States, then new fields will pop up where you can select which state or city is closest to you. At the clinicaltrial.gov website, you will find listings for studies that are worldwide, not just studies in the United States.   When you find a study, you may be interested in, check to see what length of time is required including your initial assessment, treatment sessions, and the number of follow up appointments.  If the study location is out of state or a long distance from home, it may not be practical or feasible for you to make all of your appointments.

Contact

After you perform your search you can start to read about the details of the different studies and eligibility requirements.  If you believe that you meet the preliminary requirements, you can reach out to the Contact that is listed.  Sometimes it is the Principal Investigator (PI).  The PI is the person responsible for the scientific, medical, and technical design and administration of the entire clinical study.  Usually a phone number and an email address will be listed. Other times it may be a study research staff or a contact at the sponsoring pharmaceutical company.

The www.clinicaltrials.gov website is available for patients as well as medical staff to use.  The more searches you perform the more comfortable you will get in understanding what studies are open to patients with your eye condition.  Discover for yourself what the cutting-edge research is offering from retinal implants, to improved reading speed, to less frequent eye injections.

Leslie Degner, RN, BSN

www.WebRN-MacularDegeneration.com