Prevention of RA...is it possible? Urgent request for participants to attend a London focus group Tuesday 26th February.NRAS is supporting a clinical study being carried out by King’s College London and Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust as Co-sponsors with Prof. Andy Cope as Chief Investigator.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can be prevented if targeted immunotherapy is given to subjects in whom autoantibody screening indicates high risk of developing the disease.
Before recruitment for study participants can commence we are hosting a focus group of people to gather opinions of individuals on what would influence people in their decisions to participate in such a clinical study. We hope to have 12 people attend and they will be a mixture of relatives of people with RA as well as people with RA themselves.
Criteria for the focus group is as follows:
• Be someone living with RA who also had a close family relative with the RA upon receiving a diagnosis. (i.e. if your parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, grandparent had/has Rheumatoid Arthritis or a similar inflammatory disease).
• Or be someone related to a person living with RA but you are NOT diagnosed or necessarily showing any signs of rheumatoid arthritis at present.
• Be willing to participate in an open and frank discussion expressing your views on the feasibility, safety and acceptability of a clinical study that will require people at high risk of developing RA but without a clinical diagnosis to be treated with a biological therapy.
• Be able & willing to travel to London’s Guy’s Hospital Campus on Tuesday 26th February for a meeting at 11am to 2pm. (travel expenses up to £25 will be reimburse upon production of valid receipts). Refreshments and lunch will be provided.
To register your interest in being part of this focus group (which does not necessarily include or exclude you from the clinical study) please email
clare@nras.org.uk by 5pm on 18th February. Please give a brief outline in your email as to how you meet the above criteria, your age and sex. If you are selected to participate in the focus group we will send you full details of venue, directions etc. by 25th February.
Thank you.
Emma
NRAS Membership Supervisor
