Clinical Study

I'm often completing surveys on many different topics and on at least one i must've ticked 'yes' to having asthma. A few weeks ago i got a call from Synexus inviting me to take part in a clinical study on asthma. I answered a load of questions and as far as their questions are concerned i'm suitable for their study.

I've got an intial appointment tomorrow dinnertime to see if i am actually suitable and i've been told there'll be a spirometry test. I've never had spirometry done so that in itself should be interesting

I wondered if anyone else has ever taken part in a clinical study (for asthma or anything else) and what might be involved if i'm accepted on the full study?

[yaf_user681_30355]

I took part in the Symbicort SMART clinical trials. Is that the same as a clinical study?

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dunno JF but i'm not suitable anyway - i'm too healthy hahaha

Apparently to be suitable you must've been admitted to hospital or been on oral steroids within the past 6 months and i've done neither

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I took part in one a few years ago, related to peak flow monitoring and whether phone monitoring with back up was more effective than home monitoring with a book. Thats how I got my free (crap lol) piko1 meter which I've never used since!

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I did a trial for inhaled Interferon 3yrs ago in Southampton, it was a good experience all round actually - taught me a lot about asthma (which has been helpful these past few months since mine has gone downhill) and I was paid about £700 plus expenses. I have just heard from them today actually as I wrote asking if it would be possible to have copies of my lung function test results so the ones I am soon to have can be compared more accurately and they have sent sheaves of information! Turns out I was given the actual drug too rather than placebo which is good to know, as I had amazing results with it!

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I have volunteered for the london trials

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What are those Lejaya?

I'd be potentially interested in taking part (would be good to learn more and maybe find a 'magic drug' hehe) but have held off for various reasons:

a) No-one would have me for anything except an asthma trial! I do psychology ones but can't always do those if any medication is involved (there are some where to be cautious you have to not be taking any medication regularly).

b) I hate spirometry and LF. Any asthma trial is going to have a lot of those! I might be able to get past that (and might not hate it as much) if I weren't pretty bad at doing them for some reason, which also makes me think that I wouldn't be very welcome...

c) My asthma is kind of weird. I think they should actually be studying different forms but I feel like I wouldn't be an ideal candidate for a study which assumes certain things, like PF being a good surrogate measure for symptoms (though this seems like a dubious assumption in general - the BOLD effect in fMRI is probably a lot more reliable and you have to tread fairly carefully with that).

But maybe researchers are already aware even if a lot of non-research drs aren't. I did read a review paper once though which said that the criteria for most asthma studies were not necessarily the right ones - they were seeing confirmed severe asthmatics who were below the 15% reversibility requirement and therefore not eligible even though they were in a lot of other respects the type of asthmatics the studies wanted to be looking at. You have to have some criteria of course but this guy was suggesting the standard ones might not be the best and were leaving out a lot of asthmatics who ought to be studied more precisely because they don't meet standard criteria!

The cons I'm hoping to go back to is a researcher though so I guess if he ever has any studies for weird types he'd recruit me! I wouldn't have me as a subject though, speaking as someone starting to do research (though in a very different area).

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I also have some experience participating in a Phase 1 clinical trial for cardiovascular test and I only take medicine and some exercises. After that they show me the result and it has positive output. But I don't have yet an idea about full clinical study but I think the medical researchers tell you about the qualifications and activities that you are going to do.