Endoscopy-based research can effect quality of life in healthy volunteers?

The involvement of healthy volunteers (HV) in clinical and preclinical research, especially in the gastroenterology, has grown dramatically over the past few years. However, many issues of ethical, methodological or even legal concerns have not been systematically studied.

A research article to be published on January 28, 2010 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. A research team lead by Professor Peter Malfertheiner, evaluated prospectively the changes in quality of life (QOL) in ten HV during a long-term endoscopy-based study.

The study was conducted strictly according to existing ethical recommendations and guidelines. Using the validated SF-36 survey and visual analog scale-based questionnaires, they showed that the research study with multiple endoscopic examinations and a long-term protocol did not or only minimally affected the QOL of HV.

This study provided valuable and important information regarding the QOL of HV who participate in endoscopy-based studies, and supported the existing recommendation and guidelines on this topic in Gastroenterology.