New Funding Announcement from PCORI: “Symptom Management for Patients with Advanced Illness”
07.06.2017
We would like to inform you about a new funding opportunity
from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), entitled,
“Symptom Management for Patients with Advanced Illness”. This announcement can be found on the PCORI website. Please share this notice
widely with others who may be interested.
Please email sciencequestions@pcori.org with any questions related to this
funding announcement.
New PCORI
Funding Announcement (PFA):
Symptom Management for Patients with Advanced Illness
The
Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) seeks to fund multiple
high quality clinical studies that compare the effectiveness of evidence-based
treatments for relief of common symptoms experienced by patients with serious,
advanced illness. Prior research on symptom management has shown the potential
for clinically significant improvements in quality of life, symptom burden,
utilization of hospital services, and caregiver stress. Additional evidence
from head-to-head studies is needed to improve the evidence base about how
various symptom management approaches convey benefits and harms upon patients.
The goal of this funding initiative is to support patient- and
caregiver-centered, comparative clinical effectiveness research to generate
important findings that will aid decision making about symptom management in
advanced illness.
Symptoms of
specific interest for this PFA include pain, fatigue, dyspnea, insomnia,
anorexia/cachexia, nausea/vomiting, and depression or anxiety. Study
populations should include patients with a serious, life-limiting diagnosis
including, but not limited to, advanced heart failure, cancer, chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease, end-stage liver and kidney disease, or
neurodegenerative diseases. PCORI is particularly interested in studies that
will increase the evidence for treatments that are effective in pediatric and
adolescent populations, where fewer studies have been completed. Studies on populations with advanced illnesses other than cancer, which
have also been less represented in prior research, are of particular interest
as well.
For this PFA,
proposed studies must address actual clinical decision choices faced by
patients, caregivers, and providers for relieving symptoms in advanced
illnesses. The interventions proposed for study must include an evidence-based
pharmacologic treatment and an appropriate pharmacologic or non-pharmacologic
comparator. PCORI is interested in comparing interventions with adequate
evidence of efficacy and/or those that are in common use. Study outcomes should
include well-validated patient assessment measures, symptom measures, adverse
events, and caregiver measures (as appropriate, especially in studies of
pediatric patients). Follow-up of patient participants should be at least six months,
and accordingly, life expectancy should be projected to be a minimum of six
months.
The maximum project
budget is $2 million in direct costs, with a maximum project duration of three
years.
Please note that we
will hold a Town Hall to answer applicant questions on July 12, 2017. You can
register for the Town Hall on our website.