ASCO's PRE-ACT Program Educates Patients About Clinical Trials

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) created the PRE-ACT (Preparatory Education About Clinical Trials) program to provide general information about clinical trials to patients and the lay public. PRE-ACT was developed with support from the NCI and is available on ASCO’s patient education website, cancer.net.

PRE-ACT delivers clinical trial information through a series of 20 short videos. Users can choose to have PRE-ACT personalize the videos based on their feedback to a series of questions that assess knowledge and/or interest areas, or may browse videos of interest from the entire video library. Some of the topics covered in the videos are understanding randomization, who pays for clinical a trial, and how expenses can be managed when transportation to a clinical trial is required.

ASCO notes that that PRE-ACT may assist patients in considering all of their treatment options.

Although the website is accessible to patients (as well as the public), patients need to know it’s there, so I’m hoping that ASCO will publicize the availability of this resource and hope that clinicians will make patients aware of its existence.