Effect of limited reporting in clinical trials on the ability to guide treatment decisions for real-world patients with cancer.

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (28_suppl) ◽  
pp. 18-18
Author(s):  
Ene Mercy Enogela ◽  
Risha Gidwani ◽  
Jeffrey Franks ◽  
Nicole E. Caston ◽  
Gabrielle Betty Rocque

18 Background: National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines are derived from reviews of clinical trials. Many of these trials have strict inclusion criteria, resulting in trial samples that are not representative of the larger cancer population. We therefore sought to understand how clinical trials, referenced in the NCCN guidelines, report key patient baseline demographics relating to age, race/ethnicity, and country or geographic region. Methods: NCCN guidelines for four cancer types were reviewed: prostate, colon, breast, and lung. We abstracted race/ethnicity, age, country/geographic region, and hazard ratios (HRs) from references indexed in the NCCN Guidelines. Race/ethnicity and age information was obtained from baseline characteristics tables in reported studies. The country/geographic region from which participants were recruited was acquired from each individual trial’s National Clinical Trial (NCT) number, linked to clinicaltrial.gov or the main manuscript. Each study was also assessed for its reporting of survival outcomes based on race/ethnicity, age, and country. Results: A total of 31 studies reporting on 36 regimens were examined for this review. While all studies reported age, only 39% (n=12) included characterization of older adults (60 years or older). 52% provided information on the racial and ethnic makeup of the study sample. Countries where participants were recruited were mostly not reported in the main papers, rather they were identified from ClinicalTrials.gov. Also, while 67% of all studies (n=25) included an international sample, only 5% reported the country or geographic location in the main manuscript. Few studies reported efficacy by patient sub-population. 12 of the 31 (39%) manuscripts reported HRs by age. Of the 16 manuscripts reporting race/ethnicity, 16% included HRs by race/ethnicity. Only one study reported efficacy outcomes by country. Conclusions: There is a need to have a standardized system for reporting baseline characteristics as well as trial outcomes for clinical trials. Including information on subgroup-specific baseline and efficacy outcomes in clinical trial results is an inexpensive way of improving the quality of information available to oncologists and will aid them in making evidence-based treatment decisions for the entirety of their patient populations.

Author(s):  
Subha Sankar Paul ◽  
Goutam Biswas

: COVID-19 is a public health emergency of international concern. Although, considerable knowledge has been acquired with time about the viral mechanism of infection and mode of replication, yet no specific drugs or vaccines have been discovered against SARS-CoV-2, till date. There are few small molecule antiviral drugs like Remdesivir and Favipiravir which have shown promising results in different advanced stage of clinical trials. Chloroquinine, Hydroxychloroquine, and Lopinavir-Ritonavir combination, although initially was hypothesized to be effective against SARS-CoV-2, are now discontinued from the solidarity clinical trials. This review provides a brief description of their chemical syntheses along with their mode of action and clinical trial results available in Google and different peer reviewed journals till 24th October 2020.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110163
Author(s):  
Tariq H. Malik ◽  
Chunhui Huo

Result disclosure of clinical trial posts a conflicting logic between private secrecy and public interest. Despite ethical and legal requirements for disclosing clinical trial results, clinical trials’ sponsors tend to withhold the results. We explored the location, timing, and rationale behind the withheld clinical trial results. Based on the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) perspective, we propose that organizational EO contingencies moderate the disclosure decision. We used the completed clinical trial projects in China by foreign and domestic sponsors. First, we found that a unit increase in the sponsor’s experience can increase the disclosure about 1.01 times. Second, we found that industrial enterprises disclose results about 3.7 times more than universities do. Third, we found that foreign clinical trial projects in China tend to disclose 3.9 times more than domestic projects. We link these findings to two types of audience. First, we inform the academic community on the theory and empirics regarding risk-taking behavior in the biopharmaceutical industry’s clinical trial activity. Second, we address the general audiences concerned about the ethical and socioeconomic wellbeing of the public.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 536-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Unger ◽  
Dawn L. Hershman ◽  
Kathy S. Albain ◽  
Carol M. Moinpour ◽  
Judith A. Petersen ◽  
...  

Purpose Studies have shown an association between socioeconomic status (SES) and quality of oncology care, but less is known about the impact of patient SES on clinical trial participation. Patients and Methods We assessed clinical trial participation patterns according to important SES (income, education) and demographic factors in a large sample of patients surveyed via an Internet-based treatment decision tool. Logistic regression, conditioning on type of cancer, was used. Attitudes toward clinical trials were assessed using prespecified items about treatment, treatment tolerability, convenience, and cost. Results From 2007 to 2011, 5,499 patients were successfully surveyed. Forty percent discussed clinical trials with their physician, 45% of discussions led to physician offers of clinical trial participation, and 51% of offers led to clinical trial participation. The overall clinical trial participation rate was 9%. In univariate models, older patients (P = .002) and patients with lower income (P = .001) and education (P = .02) were less likely to participate in clinical trials. In a multivariable model, income remained a statistically significant predictor of clinical trial participation (odds ratio, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.57 to 0.94; P = .01). Even in patients age ≥ 65 years, who have universal access to Medicare, lower income predicted lower trial participation. Cost concerns were much more evident among lower-income patients (P < .001). Conclusion Lower-income patients were less likely to participate in clinical trials, even when considering age group. A better understanding of why income is a barrier may help identify ways to make clinical trials better available to all patients and would increase the generalizability of clinical trial results across all income levels.


2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 673-673
Author(s):  
Ziwei Wang ◽  
Lindsay Hwang ◽  
James Don Murphy

673 Background: Randomized clinical trials play a central role in clinical research though only a small fraction of patients partake in clinical studies. Questions thus arise regarding the generalizability of clinical trial results to the remainder of the population. This study evaluated whether patient survival from randomized clinical trials in metastatic colorectal cancer reflects real world outcomes. Methods: A Pubmed search was used to identify randomized phase III clinical trials of first-line treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer published between 2005 and 2010. We excluded secondary or pooled analyses, second-line treatments, non-metastatic patients, non-English language, and non-randomized studies. Thirty-one clinical trials met these criteria, comprised of 79 distinct clinical trial arms. Overall survival among clinical trial patients was compared to metastatic colorectal cancer patients within the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. Within SEER, we restricted the analysis time-period and age of patients to match the enrollment period and age of patients within each individual clinical trial. Results: The clinical trials enrolled a total of 16,614 patients. Among all clinical trial arms the median survival ranged from 6.7-62 months, 1-year survival ranged from 30-97%, and 2-year survival ranged from 6-88%. Compared to SEER, the median survival was higher in 95% of the individual clinical trial arms by an average of 5.4 months (p<0.0001). The 1-year survival was higher in 94% of the clinical trial arms by an average of 16.7% (p<0.0001). The 2-year survival was higher in 71% of the clinical trial arms by an average of 7.2% (p<0.0001). Conclusions: This study found substantially improved survival among clinical trial participants compared to patients in the SEER database suggesting that survival estimates from clinical trials may not generalize to the “real world.” Potential patient factors such as differences in underlying comorbidity, performance status, disease burden, as well as variation in treatment could not be addressed in this study, though these factors likely explain some of the observed survival differences.


2021 ◽  
pp. bmjebm-2020-111603
Author(s):  
John Ferguson

Commonly accepted statistical advice dictates that large-sample size and highly powered clinical trials generate more reliable evidence than trials with smaller sample sizes. This advice is generally sound: treatment effect estimates from larger trials tend to be more accurate, as witnessed by tighter confidence intervals in addition to reduced publication biases. Consider then two clinical trials testing the same treatment which result in the same p values, the trials being identical apart from differences in sample size. Assuming statistical significance, one might at first suspect that the larger trial offers stronger evidence that the treatment in question is truly effective. Yet, often precisely the opposite will be true. Here, we illustrate and explain this somewhat counterintuitive result and suggest some ramifications regarding interpretation and analysis of clinical trial results.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittany J. Maguire ◽  
Philippe J. Guérin

Since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak was identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, a strong response from the research community has been observed with the proliferation of independent clinical trials assessing diagnostic methods, therapeutic and prophylactic strategies. While there is no intervention for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 with proven clinical efficacy to date, tools to distil the current research landscape by intervention, level of evidence and those studies likely powered to address future research questions is essential. This living systematic review aims to provide an open, accessible and frequently updated resource summarising the characteristics of COVID-19 clinical trial registrations. Weekly search updates of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and source registries will be conducted. Data extraction by two independent reviewers of trial characteristic variables including categorisation of trial design, geographic location, intervention type and targets, level of evidence and intervention adaptability to low resource settings will be completed. Descriptive and thematic synthesis will be conducted. A searchable and interactive visualisation of the results database will be created, and made openly available online. Weekly results from the continued search updates will be published and made available on the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO) website (COVID-19 website). This living systematic review will provide a useful resource of COVID-19 clinical trial registrations for researchers in a rapidly evolving context. In the future, this sustained review will allow prioritisation of research targets for individual patient data meta-analysis.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 6622-6622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suneil Kumar Khanna ◽  
Matthew John Boyko ◽  
Daniel Yick Chin Heng ◽  
Michael M. Vickers ◽  
Vincent Channing Tam

6622 Background: Phase III clinical trial results described in abstracts in the ASCO Annual Meeting Proceedings often differ from final results seen in publication. We hypothesize that the abstracts may act only as place holders, while the results presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting are more highly concordant with the final publication. Methods: A retrospective review of all abstracts submitted to the ASCO Annual Meeting in 2005 to 2007 was conducted. Inclusion Criteria: randomized, prospective phase III clinical trials of greater than 200 patients with at least one quantitative primary endpoint such as OS or PFS. For each abstract, we viewed the VM presentation and searched Pubmed and Medline for the corresponding publications. Data regarding the clinical trials was extracted from all three sources and statistical comparisons were made. Results: A total of 7,900 abstracts were screened from the ASCO 2005 and 2007 Annual Meetings, of which 124 met the inclusion criteria. An additional 43 studies were excluded due to absence of either a VM presentation or publication. The majority (96%) of these trials were presented as either an oral presentation or poster discussion. Key comparisons of the concordance between the abstract or VM presentation and the final publication are shown in the Table below. Conclusions: While the statistical significance of the primary endpoint and conclusions from all three sources are very similar, the results reported in VM presentations at ASCO Annual Meetings are a better representation of the final publication compared to the abstract. When relying on clinical trial results from these meetings to change clinical practice, physicians should refer to the VM presentation rather than the abstract. [Table: see text]


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 2539-2539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bindu Kanapuru ◽  
Harpreet Singh ◽  
Lola A. Fashoyin-Aje ◽  
Adrian Myers ◽  
Geoffrey Kim ◽  
...  

2539 Background: Clinical trials are increasingly conducted on a global scale in an effort to accelerate accrual. This analysis attempts to quantify and characterize participants in trials submitted to support approval of drugs for oncology indications by the region of enrollment. Methods: Demographic information was extracted for patients enrolled in clinical trials submitted to the FDA from 2005-2015. Only trials submitted to support approval for malignant solid tumor or hematology indications were included. Countries were grouped into regions for further analysis. A total of 178,024 patients with information regarding age and country were included in this analysis. Results: Forty five percent (80,460) of clinical trial participants were enrolled from Europe, 36% (63,958) from North America (includes U.S.A and Canada) and 8.4% (14,975) from Asia. Countries in Latin America, Middle East/Africa and the Baltic States/Russia enrolled the remainder 10.5% of the patients. Among 99,556 participants < 65 years of age; 38.7% (38,538) were enrolled from North America, 40.5% (40,362) from Europe, 9.7 % (9674) from Asia and 11% from the rest of the regions. Europe enrolled the highest number of cancer patients aged 65 years or older; 51.1% (40,098) compared to 32.4% (25,420) from North America and 6.8 % (5301) from Asia. Conclusions: Majority of patients enrolled into clinical trials submitted for oncology drug approvals were from regions other than North America, with highest number enrolled from Europe particularly in the older age group. While it is interesting to speculate, the reasons for differential enrollment of patients between Europe and North America and the impact of these findings on interpretation of clinical trial results need additional exploration. Analysis of trends over time may be useful to address this issue. [Table: see text]


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