ABSTRACT
Public and Patient Involvement in research is becoming a requirement on most research funding applications; this includes both healthcare and lab-based research. Whilst case studies and practical guides have been developed and are well documented for PPI in healthcare research, there is very little guidance available for PPI in lab-based research. In this piece we discuss our experience of how we have successfully involved patients in our translational cancer research, which is focused on developing personalised treatment for high-grade serous ovarian cancer. We discuss the benefits it has made to both our research and to us as researchers. The patients involved write about their experience, what they enjoyed, and the benefits they felt. Although PPI is quite topical and is being widely discussed, there is hesitancy among researchers, especially those in lab-based research about getting started because of a lack of practical guidance about how to implement it. Here, we have shared our experience, hopefully providing a practical example of how PPI can be incorporated into a lab-based research project.
This piece is co-authored by researchers and ovarian cancer patients and presents their experience of patient involvement in a laboratory-based cancer research project focused on the personalised treatment of high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Discussions with five ovarian cancer patients about their treatment experience highlighted the fact that drugs showing equivalent clinical efficacy are not necessarily tolerated equally by individual patients. This led researchers to alter their original experimental design, by including a number of the same drug type instead of focusing on only one. The researchers also discuss the benefits it has made to both the research and to them as researchers. The patients involved write about their experience, what they enjoyed, and the benefits they felt.
