In the U.S., millions of people experience cancer every year but don't have an equal opportunity to access experimental treatments in clinical trials, or to receive treatments that were shown to be effective in patients like them.
Over the past several years, there have been numerous efforts by major national organizations such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Cancer Institute and NRG Oncology to increase opportunities for diverse communities to enroll in clinical trials to improve and ensure that new cancer treatments are being developed for the populations that will use them.
To determine if these efforts have been successful, researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center (BMC) reviewed cancer clinical trials around the country and found, in head and neck cancer, these trials are actually becoming less racially and ethnically diverse over time. The situation of inequitable representation in cancer research has actually worsened in the last 10 years. Tragically, we live in a time when things like your race and gender impact how likely you are to survive your cancer.
Research like this is striving to overcome these inequities to provide everyone facing a cancer diagnosis with opportunities to access treatments that were shown to be effective in patients like them." Heather Ann Edwards, MD, FACS, FRCSC, senior author, associate professor of otolaryngology-head & neck surgery, Boston University Choban.
