Evaluation of Enhanced Syphilis Screening Among HIV-positive Men

Summary

This study aims to enhance syphilis testing among HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM), so that more men will undergo testing, they will test more often, and more cases will be treated early. The intervention will combine syphilis tests with the standard HIV blood tests that are routinely done every 3-6 months for persons in care at hospital-based HIV clinics in Toronto and Ottawa, Canada.

Conditions

• Syphilis

Interventions

OTHER

Syphilis testing with routine HIV bloodwork

The intervention condition will be implemented as standing orders for syphilis serology whenever patients undergo their standard battery of follow-up bloodwork, i.e., when there is an order for HIV viral load or CD4 cell count. It is standard practice for HIV patients to undergo such tests every 3-6 months. We anticipate that the change in practice will be straightforward, involving minimal training of clinic staff. Team members who are physicians at these clinics will guide the specific approach that will be appropriate and sustainable for their setting. Options are quite simple. They include pre-printing a checkmark for 'syphilis serology' onto existing pre-printed requisitions for routine bloodwork; addition of the serology request form to the routine blood work package; or programming 'syphilis serology' into existing computerized routine order sets.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• University of Toronto

  collaborator OTHER

• Toronto General Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• Ontario HIV Treatment Network

  collaborator NETWORK

• The Ottawa Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

  collaborator OTHER

• Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Unity Health Toronto

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Ann N Burchell, PhD · Unity Health Toronto

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SCREENING

Masking

NONE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

16 Years

Sex

MALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-02-01

Primary Completion

2017-07-31

Completion

2017-07-31

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations