Abstract P6-15-03: MBC Connect™, an open-access, patient-reported registry of de-identified data from patients living with metastatic breast cancer

Metastatic breast cancer (MBC) remains an incurable disease and is the cause of nearly all deaths from breast cancer. Several barriers prevent efficient research into various questions about living with MBC. A key unmet need is a national database for MBC patient-reported outcomes, which does not exist anywhere in the world. Furthermore, compartmentalized data prevents broad collaborative efforts. Treatment patterns and responses, survival times, and metastatic patterns are not documented systematically and remain unavailable. Large-scale data extraction is challenging, and expensive, and electronic medical records do not provide information regarding patient experiences. Methods: MBC Connect™ was created to help overcome these barriers. MBC Connect, which is sponsored by the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance, is a multi-national registry of participant reported information about their experience of MBC. MBC Connect allows MBC patients to voluntarily provide information about their disease, treatment outcomes, and experience of living with their disease so that researchers can gain insight into unmet needs in MBC. MBC Connect has three main goals: 1. Establish an interactive registry of patient-entered, de-identified data for MBC. 2. Create an open-access portal for researchers to study these data. 3. Create a connection between investigators of clinical trials and clinical research studies and registered users who may be interested in clinical trials. Results: MBC Connect collects, via the use of a mobile app (on a smartphone or tablet, iOS and Android compatible) or via a website for desktop users, participant consent, general patient characteristics and demographics, disease characteristics, genetics and tumor mutations, treatment history, quality of life data, and clinical trial experience. This information can be provided by patients living with MBC or their caregiver. The data are collected from responses to surveys and via creation of a treatment profile. The data are de-identified and made available on an open-access Researcher portal, allowing them to be used to advance multiple areas of research into MBC, including both medical treatment aspects and quality of life issues. An interactive feature of MBC Connect is that researchers may submit a request for participants to answer additional surveys. Participants may also be notified about clinical trials for which they may be eligible. In addition, participants will regularly receive “Insights,” which are engaging bytes of information related to MBC. Insights can offer general information about the disease, upcoming events, and other facts, or they can be personalized for the participant based on the information he or she has entered the registry. Conclusions: MBC Connect is a novel platform that aims to accelerate MBC research by providing open access to patient-reported, de-identified data about patients living with MBC. The overarching objective of this technologic initiative is to increase patient engagement with the research community.

Citation Format: Campbell L, De La Torre K, Williams CE, Mertz SA, Pollastro T, Hutton A, Newby J, Ellis MJ, Iyengar NM, Hurlbert MS. MBC Connect™, an open-access, patient-reported registry of de-identified data from patients living with metastatic breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P6-15-03.

Abstract P2-14-01: Metastatic trial search: Advocacy groups collaborate to engage metastatic breast cancer patients in clinical trials

Background: Less than 5% of adult cancer patients participate in trials, delaying the arrival of new therapies to the clinic. This is concerning for metastatic breast cancer patients, for whom there is no curative treatment. To facilitate metastatic patients' access to trials, BreastCancerTrials.org (BCT) partnered with five breast cancer advocacy groups to design and develop Metastatic Trial Search (MTS), a trial matching service based on BCT technology and embedded on their websites.

Approach: BCT's partners include Breastcancer.org, Living Beyond Breast Cancer, Metastatic Breast Cancer Network, Triple Step Toward the Cure, and Young Survival Coalition. MTS was seamlessly integrated on each partner's website. To find trials, users submit data about their gender, age, location, menopausal status, cancer subtype, and sites with evidence of disease and in return receive a list of matching trials in BCT's patient-friendly format. MTS launched October 1, 2015.

Results: Our evaluation included analysis of web traffic, an online user survey, two user focus groups, and partner interviews. MTS traffic between Oct. 2015 and May 2016 resulted in over 10,000 page views; peaks of activity correlated with social media posts. The user survey, conducted between Oct. 2015 and Jan. 2016, had 102 participants; 88% learned about MTS from our advocacy partners, mostly through email (52%) or social media (21%). Most participants (60%) cited learning about new breast cancer research as an important benefit of MTS. Sixty-three percent of users were looking for treatment trials, 16% contacted a research site and 12% spoke to their doctors about trials that they found on MTS. Among all respondents, 7% enrolled in a trial and 29% were still considering enrollment. Sixty percent of MTS users were satisfied with their experience, 33% were neutral, and 6% were dissatisfied; 65% would recommend MTS to a friend. To improve MTS, users ranked adding filters to narrow search results as the most pressing need. Providing a trial alert service was ranked second. Over 80% agreed with the statement: “MTS met an unmet need.” The focus groups were made up of 14 survey respondents who volunteered to participate. Discussants spoke highly about MTS' ease-of-use and its advocacy group endorsement. They also appreciated how MTS helped them learn about different ways to participate in research and provided information to share with their oncologists. According to many participants, one of the most important benefits of MTS was that it helped them “be prepared” if they needed to change treatment.

Our advocacy partners were very satisfied with their involvement and all stated that “collaboration and sharing” were the most important outcomes. In addition, they viewed the consistency of seeing MTS on each of their sites as a benefit for patients looking to advocacy groups for trusted information.

Conclusion: Our experience with MTS shows that advocacy groups working together can create an important channel for engaging patients in learning about metastatic breast cancer trials. Next steps will be to expand our advocacy network, make it easier for users to narrow search results, and offer ways for patients to learn about newly opened clinical trials.

Citation Format: Cohen EJ, Colen SL, Dahlke DV, Esser M, Flowers L, Guglielmino JE, Jenkins M, Knackmuhs G, Lusen R, Mertz SA, Esserman LJ. Metastatic trial search: Advocacy groups collaborate to engage metastatic breast cancer patients in clinical trials [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2016 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-14-01.