The Internet is opening up new vistas for scientists searching for study subjects, Canadian researchers are discovering. Dr. James Shapiro, a member of the Alberta team that gained international recognition because of its islet cell transplantation research, says the team has been bombarded by requests from patients who want to be enrolled in the study (CMAJ 2001;164[2]:255).
“The Internet has brought many thousands of requests from across the world,” says Shapiro, director of the Clinical Islet Transplant Program at the University of Alberta. The flood started after the researchers invited potential participants to self-refer to their program (www.med.ualberta.ca/research/groups/islet/cand.html); physicians also can refer patients.
“We are fortunate,” he adds, “because we are heading up an international multicentre trial and have been able to pass many of these requests on to the central immune tolerance network site [email: [email protected]].”
Many of the requests to join the study have come from the US, but Shapiro says the team has decided that “unless we are able to access cadaveric pancreata from the US, we should confine our program to Canadian recipients.” He says this is done “to avoid conflicts” with a donation process built upon the good will of Canadian donors.
As for the self-referral process, Shapiro considers it a success. “We have accepted and are working up several patients who self-referred through our Web site.” —