Dear COMPPARE team, participants, stakeholders and friends,
I am deeply grateful for the achievements of our talented and hardworking team during the last six months. Despite the challenges that we and other cancer research studies continue to face in this unprecedented time of COVID-19, COMPPARE has made significant progress toward our ultimate goal of helping prostate cancer patients make informed treatment decisions.
I am pleased to report that on August 11, 2020 we achieved our 25% overall enrollment milestone by enrolling our 750th patient. We met our 100% Site Activation milestone on June 1st, 2020 with 45 sites activated and have been permitted to add a few additional “bonus” sites to expedite accrual. At present we have 49 COMPPARE sites activated and have accrued 928 patients (31% of the overall study population of 3000).
Given the increased importance of online engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, COMPPARE also launched a refreshed, mobile-friendly COMPPARE website on July 7, 2020. This redesign was in response to the results of our social media campaign, which revealed that the majority of Facebook visitors used mobile devices to click through to the COMPPARE website. From April through September, overall website traffic increased 185% – with a 596% gain in mobile users and a 110% upswing in organic traffic – when compared to the same period in 2019.
COMPPARE social media campaigns and strategies were also amended to adapt to treatment delays caused by COVID-19. Campaigns were paused March through August across all channels until partner sites resumed operations. Our Facebook Healthcare Provider and Prostate Cancer Patient campaigns were subsequently relaunched on September 14, 2020, and this outreach was well received: Metrics reported on October 5, 2020 showed that ads targeting health professionals reached 7,561 people, while those targeting patients reached 6,776 people.
To ensure the health and safety of our patients, staff, researchers, and COMPPARE team members during this unprecedented time of COVID, we have implemented revised policies to permit remote patient consenting. Despite these measures, accrual to COMPPARE, as well as other trials across the country, slowed and has, as yet, not fully recovered. We continue to partner with national advocacy groups and collaborate with our sites to maximize study accrual and to make sure that all eligible prostate cancer patients are offered an opportunity to participate and look forward to rapidly increasing accrual rates as COVID concerns subside.
Thank you for the work that you do to improve the lives of future prostate cancer patients. Please continue to reach out to us with any questions you may have about COMPPARE and visit our website for study updates, prostate cancer news, and engagement activities.
Best wishes,
Nancy Mendenhall, MD
COMPPARE Principal Investigator