Category: In the News

Presence of comorbidities is associated with fewer patient-physician discussions regarding clinical trials, with fewer offers made and less patient participation, according to a report published in JAMA Oncology. Updating eligibility criteria would increase access to new treatments in trials.   Clinical trial participation faces many barriers to enrollment, one of which is eligibility criteria. Although…

Unnecessarily restrictive criteria for clinical trial participation excluding those with comorbidities excludes many “real-world” cancer patients and prevents them from potentially benefiting from new treatments, say cancer researchers.   Modernizing clinical trial eligibility criteria would significantly expand the pool of patients who could participate in such trials across a variety of cancers, they suggest.  …

Patients with cancer who also have other health issues are less likely to participate in a clinical trial, potentially leaving gaps in understanding how drugs may affect individuals with certain comorbidities, according to recent research published in JAMA Oncology.   Researchers from the SWOG Cancer Research Network examined data of nearly 5,500 patients from a…

Cancer patients with high tumor mutational burden who were treated with immunotherapy tended to live longer than those with fewer mutations, researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center reported in Nature Genetics this week.   The study — involving cancer patients with a variety of tumor types, including almost 1,700 who were treated with a…

Clinical trial participation is crucial for drug development, but it’s estimated that just 5% of patients participate in clinical trials. While institutional factors, such as lack of a locally available trial, play the largest role, patient characteristics also pose barriers to participation. According to a study published in JAMA Oncology, patients with comorbidities are less…

Patients diagnosed with cancer who also have other illnesses or conditions, such as hypertension, asthma, or a prior cancer, are less likely to talk with their health-care provider about a cancer clinical trial, are less likely to be offered to join a clinical trial, and are ultimately less likely to enroll in a trial, according…

As efforts are being made to improve enrollment in cancer trials, a new study found that physicians were less likely to even discuss or offer clinical trial participation when patients had comorbidities.   Among over 5,000 cancer patients surveyed, 37.2% of those with at least one comorbid condition had discussions about clinical trials compared with…

Experiments involving just a few patients have hinted at it, and research on one type of tumor at a time has supported it, but a large study has now delivered the strongest evidence yet about how to identify cancer patients who are likely to benefit from a particular form of immunotherapy: count.   Specifically, count…

How do you make cancer clinical trials available to more patients?   A new study published today in JAMA Oncology and led by Dr. Joseph Unger at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center offers a tantalizing solution: loosen up the strict eligibility criteria.    Low clinical trial participation is a problem that’s plagued cancer researchers for…

Patients with cancer and comorbidities are routinely left out of clinical trial discussions, offers and participation, according to results of a study published in JAMA Oncology.   At least 60% of trial eligibility exclusions are related to patient comorbidities or performance status, according to study background.   Those statistics could start to change because of…