Social Media Listening in Improving Clinical Trial Recruitment in Patients With Cancer

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Examine the feasibility (acceptance among University of Southern California [USC] Norris
study team members and Twitter users in Los Angeles [LA] county) of targeted social media
listening (SML) via Twitter as a tool for enhancing recruitment to cancer trials.

II. Gain preliminary data on the impact (i.e., numbers recruited versus projected accrual
compared to historic recruitment) of targeted social media listening (SML) as a tool for
enhancing recruitment to cancer trials among Twitter users in LA county.

III. Estimate the effect size of the number of people enrolled associated with the use of
targeted social media listening (SML) via Twitter as a tool for enhancing recruitment to
cancer trials.

OUTLINE:

Patients who mention specific cancer disease keywords and/or hashtags are identified and
receive a message via Twitter. Patients are then contacted for recruitment into a clinical
trial.

Inclusion Criteria:

- TRIAL INCLUSION:

- Focus on one of the following disease categories: non-small cell lung cancer, colon
cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer, lymphoma

- Be a phase 1 trial in expansion, phase 2, or 3

- Be interventional trials

- Recruit in English

- Be Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved and open to accrual at USC Norris

- Recruit for at least 9 months at the point of enrollment

- Set monthly accrual target >= 1/ and annual accrual target >= 12

- PATIENT INCLUSION:

- Will include all prospective trial participants in this study that come from Twitter
in response of our SM recruitment interventions, provided they meet the specific
trial's eligibility criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

- TRIAL EXCLUSION:

- Phase 1 trials in dose escalation

- PATIENT EXCLUSION:

- Persons who do not meet the eligibility criteria of any of the trials open to accrual
will be excluded from participation, and persons who may be eligible (e.g.,
disease/histology, stage, prior treatment) but do not meet additional trial-specific
requirements such as insurance or allergy to drug)