This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by McCaskill-Stevens, W. Articles by Minasian, L. M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by McCaskill-Stevens, W. Articles by Minasian, L. M. Social Bookmarking                            What's this?

Increasing Minority Participation in Cancer Clinical Trials: The Minority-Based Community Clinical Oncology Program Experience

From the Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD; and Community Health Solutions Inc, Richmond, KY

Address reprint requests to Worta McCaskill-Stevens, Program Director, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, 6130 Executive Blvd, EPN 2014 Bethesda, MD 20892; e-mail: wm57h{at}nih.gov

PURPOSE: The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Minority-Based Community Clinical Oncology Program (MBCCOP) seeks to enhance minority participation in cancer clinical trials by building clinical trials outreach and management capacity in healthcare institutions serving large numbers of minority cancer patients. This article examines temporal trends in MBCCOP accruals to cancer prevention and control (CP/C) and cancer treatment trials and the racial distribution of study participants, along with the major factors affecting minority enrollment.

METHODS: We used NCI databases to analyze temporal trends in overall accruals and accruals by race. We analyzed transcripts from an NCI-sponsored meeting with MBCCOP principal investigators and data from a follow-up survey to identify factors affecting minority enrollment.

RESULTS: Between 1992 and 2003, annual patient accruals to treatment trials increased 39% despite little change in the number of MBCCOP grantees. During this same period, annual participant accruals to CP/C trials more than doubled. Between 1995 and 2003, minorities comprised 51% to 67% of the MBCCOP patients accrued to cooperative group treatment trials compared with 23% of the patients accrued by other cooperative group members and affiliates. Major factors affecting minority enrollment include the availability of "clinically relevant" protocols, regulatory requirements, characteristics of the patient population, and the level of support from sponsoring institutions and community physicians.

CONCLUSION: MBCCOPs have demonstrated their ability to facilitate the participation of racial/ethnic minorities in clinical trials. However, the contributions that they could make to the design and conduct of minority-focused research studies merit further exploration.

Authors' disclosures of potential conflicts of interest are found at the end of this article.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				B Moy, D Tu, J. Pater, J. Ingle, L. Shepherd, T. Whelan, and P. Goss Clinical outcomes of ethnic minority women in MA.17: a trial of letrozole after 5 years of tamoxifen in postmenopausal women with early stage breast cancer Ann. Onc., November 1, 2006; 17(11): 1637 - 1643. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]