scholarly journals Barriers to Enrollment of Elderly Adults in Early-Phase Cancer Clinical Trials

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 162-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Basche ◽  
Anna E. Barón ◽  
S. Gail Eckhardt ◽  
Lodovico Balducci ◽  
Martha Persky ◽  
...  

Purpose: To describe patient/family and logistical barriers to participation in university-based, early-phase cancer clinical trials for adults age ≥ 65 years, and to identify influences on their decisions to participate. Participants and Methods: In-person surveys were administered to subjects age ≥ 65 years with advanced tumors who had received prior chemotherapy. Subjects were recruited from private medical oncology practices collaborating with the University of Colorado and Moffitt Cancer Center research networks. Results: Three hundred individuals (51% age 65 to 74 and 49% age 75 or older) responded. Overall, 60% reported one or more barriers to participation in an early-phase trial; logistical barriers such as driving or time demands (34%) or reluctance to be treated at a university center (21%) were most common. Seniors age 75 or older were more reluctant to be treated at a university center (27% v 14%; P = .005), or concerned about loss of continuity with their primary oncologist (24% v 15%, P = .05). Older seniors were also significantly more reluctant than younger seniors to consider treatments with substantial nausea, vomiting, or fatigue. Older and younger seniors differed little in their preferred sources of information; both age groups emphasized the importance of the primary oncologist (100%), a nurse who provides experimental treatment (93%), other patients (83%) or acquaintances who had received experimental treatment (83%). Conclusion: Potential strategies to overcome barriers to enrollment of seniors into early-phase trials include providing more information about trials to community oncologists and prospective enrollees and assisting these individuals in navigating logistical barriers to enrollment.


2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e16065-e16065
Author(s):  
J. Vinson ◽  
P. Mathew ◽  
T. M. Beer ◽  
M. A. Carducci ◽  
W. Oh ◽  
...  

e16065 Background: Leading investigators in prostate cancer have hypothesized that clinical trials (CT) are optimally conducted as multicenter studies. To test this, the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium (PCCTC) was formed with support from the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) and the Department of Defense Clinical Consortium Award (DOD). Since the PCCTC's inception in 2006, members have cooperatively designed, carried out, and evaluated phase 1 and 2 multicenter studies in prostate cancer. Methods: PCF and DOD awards support a consortium of 13 cancer research centers. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center serves as the coordinating center and is charged with creating an infrastructure to conduct early phase, multicenter trials. Annually, each participating center is required to introduce at least one CT for consideration by the PCCTC and accrue at least 35 patients to PCCTC studies. Investigators meet face-to-face twice per year to discuss the PCCTC's progress, and hold monthly conference calls to discuss scientific objectives, trial design, and ongoing studies. Results: Since inception, the PCCTC has expanded from 8 to 13 leading research centers. Through September 2008, it has opened 47 trials and accrued 1,282 patients at member sites. Members utilize a CT management system for protocol tracking, electronic data capture, and data storage. A legal framework has been instituted, and standard operating procedures, administrative structure, editorial support, centralized budgeting, and mechanisms for scientific review have been established. Each year, the number of trials presented and patients accrued increases, and three concepts have progressed to the next phase of clinical testing. Conclusions: The PCCTC fulfills a congressional directive to create a CT instrument dedicated to rapid accrual to early-phase, multicenter studies in prostate cancer. The member institutions have built a shared administrative, informatics, legal, financial, statistical, and scientific infrastructure to support this endeavor. As the PCCTC has expanded and taken an increasingly active role in designing and evaluating protocols, clinical trials continue to open and accrue in excess of federally mandated goals. No significant financial relationships to disclose.









2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e18228-e18228
Author(s):  
Dazhi Liu ◽  
Thu Oanh Dang ◽  
Stephen Harnicar ◽  
Katherine Kargus ◽  
Lauren A Evans ◽  
...  

e18228 Background: Early phase clinical trials have broadened treatment options for patients with cancer. Expert management of these new therapies is essential to positive patient outcomes. At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Developmental Therapeutic Center (DTC) satisfies this need. Oncology clinical pharmacists collaborate with other healthcare professionals to maximize the benefits of drug therapy and minimize toxicities. The purpose of this project is to describe the interventions from a clinical pharmacist assigned to the DTC. Methods: A clinical pharmacist joined DTC to serve adult patients with cancer undergoing clinical trials. The clinical pharmacist acted as a liaison between pharmacy team and medical team, and sees patients during their trial eligibility screening and follow-up visits. The interventions were documented by the clinical pharmacist in patients’ medical charts and email communications. All interventions during 1 month were retrospectively collected and categorized into supportive care optimization, protocol violation prevention, and operational. Results: The oncology clinical pharmacist was involved in 115 patient visits for trial eligibility screening or protocol follow-up. A total of 769 interventions were addressed including supportive care optimization (40.2%), protocol violation prevention (24.7%), and operational (35.1%). Conclusions: The oncology clinical pharmacist is actively engaged in many aspects of cancer care at the early phase trial clinic. Our results demonstrate the vital role of an oncology clinical pharmacist. The impact of these categorized intervention areas would require a formal outcome and cost-saving analysis. [Table: see text]



2015 ◽  
Vol 76 (7) ◽  
pp. 409-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Coupe ◽  
Avinash Gupta ◽  
Simon R Lord


2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (18_suppl) ◽  
pp. 17026-17026
Author(s):  
D. C. Vamos ◽  
M. P. Kane ◽  
J. Nishioka ◽  
S. Lisi ◽  
J. R. Neceskas ◽  
...  

17026 Background: Clinical trials offer the best treatment for patients with cancer, yet less than 5 percent of adults and less than 60 percent of children are enrolled on clinical trials. To determine reasons for lack of enrollment on clinical trials and to assess areas for potential trial development, we designed a ‘non-protocol’ form for use at our center. Our goal was to assess deficiencies in our menu of trials, identify other barriers to enrollment, and to indirectly increase awareness of trials. Methods: Completion of a ‘non-protocol’ form was required by the pharmacy with the first set of new chemotherapy orders for all Cancer Institute of New Jersey ambulatory patients who were not enrolled on a clinical trial. The form required completion of one of three areas for lack of enrollment: trial availability, reason for ineligibility, or other reason for not enrolling the patient. Results: From June 2003 through December 2005, 474 forms were collected for patients not enrolled on a clinical trial. The median age of patients not enrolled on trial was 56 years (range 1 to 88 years) and females outnumbered males (69% vs 31%). Lack of trial availability limited enrollment for 51% of patients (n=241) while administration of standard therapy was listed for 10 patients. Of those patients where a trial was available (n=223), 65% (n=145) of patients were not eligible, most commonly due to performance status (n=55). The remaining 78 patients refused participation. To determine if implementation of this pharmacy service changed the reasons for lack of enrollment, the data was evaluated by year: Conclusion: Lack of trial availability has been a rate-limiting factor in enrollment on clinical trials at our center. The data generated from the implementation of this novel pharmacy service is of strategic importance to the center. It is reviewed with the tumor-focused groups of the cancer center to identify areas for developing clinical trials. [Table: see text] No significant financial relationships to disclose.



2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 2542-2542
Author(s):  
Grace Mishkin ◽  
Andrea Denicoff ◽  
S. Percy Ivy ◽  
Richard Piekarz ◽  
Shanda Finnigan ◽  
...  


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. e666-e675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumya J. Niranjan ◽  
Jennifer A. Wenzel ◽  
Michelle Y. Martin ◽  
Mona N. Fouad ◽  
Selwyn M. Vickers ◽  
...  

PURPOSE: In general, participation rates in cancer clinical trials are very low. However, participation rates are especially low among the socially disadvantaged and racial and ethnic minority groups. These groups have been historically under-represented in cancer clinical trials. Although many patient-related barriers have been studied, institutional factors that are essential for building clinical research infrastructure around the clinical trial enterprise in academic medical centers have been underexplored. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We assessed perspectives of cancer center professional stakeholders on the institutional factors that can potentially influence racial and ethnic minority recruitment for cancer clinical trials. Ninety-one qualitative interviews were conducted at five US cancer centers among four stakeholder groups: cancer center leaders, principal investigators, referring clinicians, and research staff. Qualitative analyses examined response data focused on institutional factors related to minority recruitment for cancer clinical trials. RESULTS: Four prominent themes emerged regarding institutional barriers among clinical and research professionals. (1) There are no existing programs currently being used to recruit or retain minorities to clinical trials. (2) Institutional efforts are needed to increase trial participation and are not specific to potential minority participants. (3) Access to cancer clinical trials and navigation within an Academic Medical Center need to be simplified to better facilitate recruitment of minority patients. (4) Community outreach by cancer centers will increase clinical research awareness in the community. CONCLUSION: Our research highlights the need to address institutional barriers to improve the success of minority recruitment. To increase participation among minority populations, medical centers must address mutable institutional barriers such as setting specific minority recruitment goals for cancer clinical trials, ensuring that cancer clinical trials are accessible, especially to minority patients, and supporting sustained community outreach programs to increase clinical research awareness.



2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e18756-e18756
Author(s):  
Ronan Andrew McLaughlin ◽  
Valerie Madigan ◽  
Maureen O'Grady ◽  
Thamir Andrew Mahgoub ◽  
Roshni Andrew Kalachand ◽  
...  

e18756 Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruptions to cancer clinical trial research across the world due to a temporary global suspension of patients’ recruitment to cancer clinical trials. Access to clinical trials permits better treatment options and best clinical practice standards for patients with cancer. We present the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer clinical trial activity at the Cancer Clinical Trials Unit (CCTU) at the Mid-Western Cancer Centre, University Hospital Limerick (UHL). Over the last 4 years 28 clinical trials, both interventional and translational, have opened here, across a variety of primary disease sites, with 5 trials opened in 2017, 11 in 2018, 7 in 2019 but only 2 in the first 10 months of 2020 until 3 further trials were opened in December. Methods: CCTU records were reviewed to identify the number of patients screened and consented to participate in cancer clinical trials at UHL in 2020, which were compared directly with corresponding numbers for 2019. Results: In 2019, 17 clinical trials were open and recruiting at the CCTU, UHL. During 2020, 19 trials were recruiting although during the 1st surge of the COVID-19 pandemic recruitment was essentially suspended and CCTU staff were redeployed throughout the hospital. 1st Six months 2020 vs 2019 In the six months from January 2020 until the end of June 2020, 99 patients were screened and only 15 (15.2%) signed informed consent to participate in a cancer clinical trial. When these figures are directly compared with the first six months of 2019, there is a 33% reduction in patients screened for participation (147 vs 99) and a 60% reduction in patients consented (37 vs 15) to clinical trials. 12 Months 2020 vs 2019 In total during 2019, 376 patients were screened for inclusion to participate and 49 (13%) patients signed informed consent to participate in a clinical trial within CCTU at UHL. In 2020, 914 patients were screened for participation with 51 patients consented to participate (5.6%). The majority (45/51 (88%)) of patients consented to cancer clinical trials in 2020 at the CCTU, UHL were recruited to translational based studies and only 6 (12%) consented to interventional studies compared with 2019 when 30/49 (61%) consented to translational and 30/49 (39%) to interventional studies. Conclusions: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the percentage of patients consented to participation in a clinical trial reduced significantly, as compared to the previous year (5.6% vs 13%). Fewer interventional studies have recruited patients during 2020. As we enter the third surge of COVID-19 infections in Ireland, we must continue to monitor and identify effective strategies to navigate the ever-changing situation for cancer clinical trials, in an attempt to maintain access to high quality cancer clinical trial opportunities for our patients.



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