More than 7% of patients participate in cancer clinical research trials, a new study shows—higher than the 5% historically reported. The findings, which were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, are the first to use national accreditation information from the Commission on Cancer (CoC) to more accurately estimate participation rates.
Researchers had previously arrived at the 5% participation rate solely based on enrollment in cancer treatment trials, “which does not reflect the willingness of patients to contribute to other elements of clinical research,” the new study’s authors said. Additionally, the statistic is nearly 20 years old.
For the new study, the researchers used data from CoC accreditation information that represents more than 70% of all cancer cases diagnosed in the United States each year. They examined annual enrollment in treatment, biorepository, diagnostic, economic, genetic, prevention, quality-of-life (QOL), and registry studies for 2013–2017 to arrive at their estimations.
Overall, they estimated that 7.1% of patients participate in cancer treatment trials across a variety of sites and settings, including 21.6% at National Cancer Institute–designated comprehensive cancer centers, 5.4% at academic comprehensive cancer programs, 5.7% at integrated network cancer programs, and 4.1% at community programs. One in five patients (21.9%) participated in one or more cancer clinical research studies.
They also found that patients with cancer were willing to participate in other types of clinical trials, including biorepository (12.9%), registry (7.3%), genetic (3.6%), QOL (2.8%), diagnostic (2.5%), and economic (2.4%) studies.
“This study shows that enrollment in clinical treatment trials is about twice as high as usually realized; this may reflect increased trial participation over time, although further research is needed. Although the overall rate remains low, this study reinforces previous research showing that many system-level structural and clinical barriers limit patients from even having the opportunity to consider trial participation for their care,” the researchers concluded.
“Furthermore, the likelihood of a patient enrolling in a clinical trial is highly influenced by the type of institution at which they seek treatment. Thus, in addition to continuing to study why patients decline trial participation, priority should be given to better characterizing and developing strategies to mitigate the structural and clinical barriers to participation.”
Finally, the authors acknowledged the critical contribution of patient participation in clinical research and pushed their peers and policymakers to recognize it as well. “Without these contributions, clinical research as currently conducted would not be feasible,” they said.
Discover how all oncology nurses contribute to cancer clinical trials in ONS’s Clinical Trials Learning Library, then read about how oncology nurses are applying clinical trial findings in direct clinical practice in this month’s ONS Voice feature article. You can also explore the additional resources listed in the sidebar for more information about clinical cancer research.