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How Featured Clinical Trials are Selected

How can I submit a trial to be featured? 
Complete the application, then email it to contact@ctsearchsupport.org.  If needed, we may ask you for more information. 

2024 Featured Trial Application.pdf 1.82 MB


Applications are reviewed quarterly:

Who reviews the applications? 
Our review committee is made up of patient and caregiver volunteers who have experience with blood cancer and blood disorder diagnoses. There is diversity in our review committee with members representing various diagnoses, demographics, and geographic locations.  

Are you a patient or caregiver interested in reviewing applications for featured trials? Complete this form. Our team member will contact you within 2 weeks.  

How are applications scored? 
Each trial will be scored by the volunteer review committee based on the following categories: 
  • High Impact  
  • Patient-Centered  
  • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Focus  
  • Accessibility  

Not every trial will meet every measure, but the reviewers will be looking for rationale for why certain criteria were not met. Reviewers score each category based on the rubric below. The threshold for approval is an average overall score of 3.5 or above.

1 = Poor
2 = Fair
3 = Good
4 = Great
5 = Exceptional 

I’ve submitted a trial to be featured. Now what? 
All applicants will be notified about the decision 4-6 weeks after the submission deadline. If your application was approved, you can expect your clinical trial to be listed on our Featured Trials page for 3 months. Then, your clinical trial information will be moved to the Featured Trials Archive, until you have closed recruitment. Regardless of the outcome of the review, your clinical trial will still be listed and accessible through our search tool until recruitment ends. 

Why do I need to apply to have a clinical trial featured? 
We know there are many clinical trials designed thoughtfully with patients in mind. We want to help more patients learn about them.  

We can’t make a fair decision on featuring trials by reviewing clinicaltrials.gov alone. This application process helps us get more information about the trial that’s relevant to the 4 categories. We think that this process will fairly and transparently identify high quality clinical trials and help more patients and their loved ones learn about them on CTSearchSupport.org.