The longer workup is some of the classification of the tumors, and then furthermore the metastatic workup, as i noticed brain mets were considered an exclusion.

This requires the PET scan. While I believe that Dana Farber has a PET scan on-site (many hospitals do not and rely on the mobile unit), this getting arranged can take several hours to days depending on schedule.

Then the radiologists must come in off the golf course to read the imaging... which could add time.

kidding... but then again, most of these folks that are being treated have likely already been staged, had either a full body CT or PET, and the results known-- so this might not be a delay after all.

The other holdup i noticed within the exclusion criteria was NY heart failure classification. I say this because if they have a possible candidate with a potentially concerning cardiac history, that has NOT already been truly classified, they will need to be referred to Cardiology, and evaluated, potentially through ECHO, stress, Etc. This could take a week if they are as busy as we are trying to fit patients in to an already full schedule.

However, all said and done, my WAG is that we could figure that each patient could take from 1-7 days to go through the screening. 1 day for the simple patient. 7 days for the complicated.

But this is just my opinion, as even though I've read dozens of studies, I've only signed people up for the relatively simple procedural ones--ie, we were running a trial at Duke (back when I was there, but its still ongoing) evaluating the difference between different mechanical and tissue heart valves, and then engaging folks in the new trials for the Endovascularly placed aortic Valves (TEVAR). was pretty straightforward, but would still take 1-2 days for the Cardiac evaluation.

hope this helps.