Participants: Staying Current with COMPPARE

Current ParticipantsThe entire COMPPARE prostate cancer study team is deeply grateful for your continued participation in COMPPARE.

It is never an easy decision for any patient to join a research endeavor. A cancer diagnosis in particular immediately impacts the emotional health and everyday lives of patients, their families, their caregivers, and loved ones. Yet in the midst of this life-changing event, you chose to help future patients make more informed treatment decisions regarding radiation therapy for their prostate cancer. Thank you.

Study Updates Participation Payment Stay Current

Our important work continues.

We wanted to let you know that COMPPARE, A Prospective COMparative Study of Outcomes with Proton and Photon RAdiation in Prostate CancEr, continues its investigation of outcome differences between proton therapy and conventional radiation. After four years and 2,524 enrolled patients, the team officially closed patient accrual to the study on October 31, 2022. We will now turn our efforts to patient retention and data collection, assisting external sites in the collection of primary and secondary endpoint data to ensure enrollment efforts are not wasted.

With the help of 51 participating institutions and patients like you, we are working hard to understand patient-reported quality of life, physician-assessed toxicity, and disease control between the two approaches. The results could change patterns of prostate cancer treatment and insurance coverage in the US.  As a prostate cancer patient and participant, you can appreciate the potential impact for everyone involved.

In addition, we are very pleased to report that COMPPARE has been recognized for both a remarkable overall accrual rate and a remarkable accrual rate of minorities. In fact, the study stands to become a model for patient-centric clinical research in the future. Read more about this achievement here.

Patient input is essential to Clinical Research.

The late outcomes of COMPPARE will be far more important than its early outcomes, for patients as well as physicians and insurers. Your continued participation in this study for a minimum of 3 years and up to 10 years is vital to our success.

Please make sure to complete all Quality of Life Questionnaires and surveys, including questions about your general health, your symptoms, well-being, and concerns related to your cancer. You can do this three ways, depending upon your enrollment:

  • Contact your care provider to complete the Quality of Life Questionnaires. Please email our team at comppare-admin@ufl.edu if you have questions about this process.
  • Access the VisionTree Optimal Care (VTOC) Patient Portal, a web-based application found here. If you need help accessing the portal, or if you have issues related to completing the surveys, or logging in, contact a study team member from the institution where you received treatment. Alternatively you can contact our team at comppare-admin@ufl.edu, we are happy to assist you.
  • Be on the lookout for additional surveys. New information has emerged that suggests there may be more differences in outcomes between men treated with photons and men treated with protons, and that some differences may be related to underlying genetic variations. The COMPPARE team is administering participant surveys to gauge your willingness to provide blood and saliva samples, which would enable the team to determine whether one type of radiation is better than the other for patients based on these genetic differences. Thank you for your response! You can learn more about this initiative here.

Find payment information here.

If you agreed to payment for your participation when you enrolled, you will receive $50 for completing questionnaires at the beginning of treatment, then again at the 3-month and annual follow-up visits for a total of up to $250 during the first 3 years of participation in the study. You may receive a total of up to $600 over the entire 10 years, depending on your participation and future funding.

If you have completed your questionnaires, but have not received payment, or are having issues with compensation, please contact our team at comppare-admin@ufl.edu.

Stay current on COMPPARE.

If you have not done so already, we invite you explore this website, where you can sign up for our COMPPARE newsletter; get to know our researchers, affiliated locations and organizations; and track our research progress. You can also contact the Coordinating Center, visit our prostate cancer research newsroom, and directly access the VTOC patient portal.

We are profoundly grateful for your role in this study. Our thoughts are with you, your loved ones, and future prostate cancer patients as we work together toward more informed treatment decisions for everyone.