Clinical Research Directory

Effects of Latin Dancing on Sleep Quality in Hispanic Cancer Survivors

The primary objective is to assess the feasibility, acceptability and explore the impact of a culturally appropriate Latin Dance intervention vs. Usual Care on sleep quality for Hispanic cancer survivors. Secondary objectives are to examine the preliminary efficacy of a culturally appropriate Latin Dance intervention on secondary cancer- and treatment-related side effects (e.g., Quality of Life, distress, insomnia, fatigue).

Using Tailored mHealth Strategies to Promote Weight Management Among Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors

The AYA WELL study is a 2-arm randomized clinical trial to test the efficacy of a theory-based, mHealth weight management intervention adapted specifically for adolescent and young adult cancer survivors compared to a self-guided arm. Participants, diagnosed with cancer between ages 15-39, currently age 18-39, post-treatment at least 6 months, and who have overweight or obesity will be randomized to receive either: 1) a comprehensive mHealth weight management program (intervention) or 2) digital tools + health education + peer support (self-guided) over 12 months. Outcomes will be assessed at 3, 6, and 12 months.

mHealth Intervention for Pain Self Management

This is a feasibility pilot test of a single-arm intervention to evaluate the beta version of an mHealth app-based behavioral intervention prior to scaling for a randomized controlled trial (RCT). This mHealth intervention is designed to enhance self-efficacy and support pain and symptom self-management among post-treatment cancer survivors.

Family Building Decision Support for Female Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors

This study aims to develop and pilot-test a nurse navigator-delivered behavioral program to support female adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors in making informed, values-driven family-building decisions after completion of cancer treatment. Female AYA survivors often face fertility impairments, uncertainty about reproductive potential, elevated obstetric risks during pregnancy, and significant emotional distress related to parenthood planning. Currently, few interventions address these post-treatment decision-making needs. The intervention consists of four videoconference sessions that combine personalized, risk-based reproductive health education with coping strategies derived from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Patient Activation Theory. A pilot randomized controlled trial will evaluate feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary changes in knowledge, decisional conflict, self-efficacy, and reproductive-health-related distress among 48 participants randomized to the intervention or a survivorship-education control condition. Findings will inform future testing of the intervention's efficacy in a larger clinical trial.

Innovating CBT-I for Cancer Survivors: An Optimization Trial

The overall goal of this project is to conduct a factorial, randomized controlled trial to optimize synchronous, virtual delivery of CBT-I for cancer survivors. The proposed project will yield multiple deliverables to innovate cancer survivorship care, chiefly an optimized, scalable, virtually-delivered intervention that addresses chronic insomnia, one of the most deleterious concerns among the growing demographic of cancer survivors in the U.S. Findings will inform future considerations for delivering CBT-I to cancer survivors.

Adapting and Pilot Testing a Loneliness Intervention for Cancer Survivors

Loneliness, which is the perceived lack of social support and connection, has increased substantially in the past decade and is adversely affecting the health and wellbeing of cancer survivors. The study seeks to test an intervention that builds on the principles of social prescribing, and targets loneliness to determine if it improves overall wellness and quality of life among cancer survivors.

BfedBwell INSPIRE Pilot

This single-arm pilot study will evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a comprehensive survivorship lifestyle intervention addressing nutrition, exercise, sleep health, and stress management. The intervention integrates the BfedBwell survivorship nutrition program with the BfitBwell clinical exercise oncology program. The augmented BfedBwell program includes: (1) a core education curriculum, (2) 1:1 counseling with a registered dietitian, (3) behavioral skills development, (4) group support, and (5) commercially available wearable technology and smart scales for self-monitoring of physical activity, sleep, and body weight.

Exercise and Nutrition for Older Cancer Survivors and Their Support Person: The Vitality Study

This research study will compare the impact of virtually supervised and unsupervised home-based exercise and diet programs on cognitive and physical function among cancer survivors and support persons. This study will involve a 6-month home-based virtually supervised or unsupervised exercise and diet intervention. The names of the study interventions involved in this study are: * Virtually supervised exercise and healthy diet care * Unsupervised exercise and healthy diet care

Sexual Health and Rehabilitation Online (SHAREonline)

SHAREonline is a study for young female cancer survivors that are experiencing changes in sexual health and function. The purpose of this research is to compare two brief interventions delivered by videoconference to learn if they help women effectively manage these changes and restore sexual health and functioning.

Testing the Feasibility of a Self-Management Support Program for Patient With Chronic Diseases in Israel

This study explores an intervention to support people in Israel who are living with chronic health conditions such as cancer or after kidney transplantation. It focuses on a well-known international program called the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP), which was developed at Stanford University. The program helps individuals build confidence and skills to better manage their health, feel more in control, and improve their day-to-day quality of life. Participants will take part in a six-week group program, delivered online, where they will learn practical strategies for managing symptoms like fatigue or pain, setting achievable health goals, communicating effectively with healthcare professionals, and staying active and engaged. The sessions are guided by trained facilitators and include support from others facing similar health challenges. The study will involve surveys before and after the program, as well as a follow-up six months later, to understand how the program may have helped participants. Some participants will also be invited to share their experiences in small discussion groups. By testing this program in Israel, the researchers hope to learn how it can be adapted and offered more widely to help others living with chronic conditions.

Finding My Way-UK: Promoting Positive Psychological Outcomes in People Living With and Beyond Curatively Treated Cancer

The goal of this pilot randomised trial is to evaluate whether an online psychosocial intervention (Finding My Way-UK) is feasible and acceptable for individuals living with and beyond curatively treated cancer. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. Is Finding My Way-UK feasible and acceptable for individuals living with and beyond curatively treated cancer? 2. Are there preliminary signals of efficacy in benefit finding and other well-being outcomes (hope, resilience, and subjective well-being)? 3. What is the potential role of information-seeking styles and self-management self-efficacy? Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1. Finding My Way-UK Intervention group: access a four-week, self-guided online program with six modules covering coping with treatment side effects, managing emotions, social support, body image, and post-treatment adjustment. 2. Control group: receive a digital information pack listing national psychological support resources. All study activities will take place online. Participants will complete questionnaires before the program, after four weeks, and three months later.

Project CASCADE: Community and Academic Synergy for Cancer Survivorship Care Delivery Enhancement

The purpose of this study is to implement a clinic-level cancer survivorship care delivery intervention in partnership with community health center clinicians, patients, and community representatives to test effectiveness of the intervention to improve patient and clinician outcomes and to evaluate implementation of the intervention using an iterative, concurrent mixed-methods approach guided by the Practice Change Model.

Making Healthy Habits Stick

The aim of this project is to help increase physical activity maintenance in cancer survivors.

Effects of Personalized Exercise Prescriptions Through Mobile Health on Physical Activity and Health Outcomes in the Cancer Survivors

Participation in regular physical activity is vital to a healthy lifestyle. Research has shown that regular participation in physical activity among cancer survivors is not only able to improve health outcomes, but is also related to their quality of life. As we live in an age of technology, health wearables and smartphone apps might be one novel manner by which to help cancer survivors increase physical activity as well as improve health outcomes. Yet, the effectiveness of wearable and app as a tool for health promotion among cancer survivors is largely unstudied. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a personalized m-health intervention via fitness wearable (Fitbit Inspire 3) exercise app (sFitRx) on physical activity, weight, quality of life, individual beliefs, and emotions among cancer survivors.

Cooperative Extension and Cancer Survivorship

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a cancer survivor program, delivered via Cooperative Extension, is feasible and if it can improve health outcomes in cancer survivors who are post-active treatment. Aim 1: Evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of SUCCESS. Hypothesis 1: SUCCESS will be feasible and acceptable as evidenced by delivery of the intervention among Educators (implementation), including in agreement with the curriculum in Phase 1 (fidelity) with \>85% attendance (demand) among participants with \>80% rating the intervention as acceptable or highly acceptable on 5-point Likert-type scale (acceptability). Aim 2: Determine the preliminary efficacy of SUCCESS for improving HRQOL (primary outcome) and other psychosocial and health-related endpoints (e.g., financial toxicity) (secondary outcomes). Hypothesis 2: Compared to matched controls, adults LWBC who complete SUCCESS will have significant improvements in HRQOL per the PROMIS Global Health v1.2 at follow-up (i.e., after 6 weeks). Aim 3: Examine changes in conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA) gene expression in a subset of interventions participants at follow-up. Hypothesis 3: Adults LWBC who complete SUCCESS will experience significant CTRA down-regulation. This is a single arm trial and there is no comparison group. Participants will be asked to do survey- and Zoom-based data collection before and after completing the 6-week program.

Remote Physical Activity Programming to Improve Outcomes in Cancer Survivors With and Without Type 2 Diabetes

The growing U.S. cancer survivor population is projected to hit 26M by 2040. Chemotherapy represents an effective cancer treatment but can diminish cancer survivors' quality of life-particularly cognitive function-through select pathophysiological processes. Research on chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment (hereafter, 'chemo-brain') is therefore critical. Chemotherapy disrupts immune system function and antioxidant regulation, causing inflammatory molecule release and damaging the brain's blood vessels. The brain's vascular function and, possibly, its neurons, are subsequently impaired-likely contributing to chemo-brain. Type 2 diabetes (T2D), a common cancer survivor comorbidity, shares underlying pathophysiology with chemo-brain. T2D-related insulin resistance can precipitate repeated high blood sugar episodes which increase inflammatory molecule release. In individuals with T2D without cancer, negative relationships are observed between inflammatory molecule concentrations and the brain's vascular and/or cognitive function. Cancer survivors with T2D might thus have higher chemo-brain risk than those without T2D. Yet, more research must compare how the brain's vascular function, as well as cognitive, inflammatory, and cardiometabolic indices, differ between these groups. Physical activity (PA) counteracts chemo-brain's and T2D's pathophysiology, with higher PA/fitness resulting in better vascular function of the brain, lower inflammatory molecule concentrations, and improved insulin sensitivity. We are therefore conducting a 30-participant quasi-experimental pilot study in cancer survivors with (cases) and without (controls) T2D. We will first investigate between-group differences in the brain's vascular function as well as cognitive, inflammatory, cardiometabolic, and epigenetic outcomes. We will then examine between-group changes in these outcomes and select psychosocial metrics during a 12-week technology-based PA program-potentially further elucidating involved mechanisms.

Breast Cancer Rehabilitation Needs and Service Uptake

The investigators are attempting to verify the prevalence of cancer rehabilitation needs at our institution in breast cancer patients. The investigators also want to assess 1) self-perceived needs for cancer rehabilitation services, 2) awareness, willingness, and patient health beliefs as determinants for cancer rehabilitation-seeking behaviour, and 3) the modifiable patient factors driving the mismatch between needs and uptake in our population. Patients attending outpatient clinics in our hospital will be approached to answer a questionnaire designed to find out this information. The investigators hope that the results will ultimately inform the design of better triage and referral systems that match patients to services based on their rehabilitation needs. The investigators believe that local survivors of breast cancer have unmet rehabilitation needs and that it is possible to evaluate their readiness to seek access to rehabilitation services as well as identify mismatches between provided and desired services through the administration of a cancer rehabilitation questionnaire (CRQ).