Dec 14, 2005

Lung Cancer Trials Biased Against Blacks and Women

Race and gender affect enrollment in lung cancer clinical trials in the United States, according to a study that found that women and blacks were least likely to take part in such trials.

The Wayne State University study of 427 lung cancer patients in Detroit also identified a need to improve educational and outreach programs to attract a wider range of patients to treatment trials for lung cancer.

The researchers reviewed data from 175 black lung cancer patients and 252 lung cancer patients from other races who were eligible for clinical trials at the Karmanos Cancer Institute between 1994 and 1998. Of this group, 91 patients (21 percent) took part in a lung cancer treatment trial.

Patients who did not take part in any trial were more likely to be black (45 percent versus 25 percent of enrollees), female (43 percent versus 32 percent of enrollees), and over age 70 (24 percent versus 10 percent of enrollees).

The findings appear in the Jan. 15, 2006 issue of the journal Cancer.

The study focused on enrollment at a single medical center and did not examine other factors that could influence clinical trial participation, so the findings should be viewed with caution, the researchers note. Those other factors include religious beliefs, lack of trust in the medical establishment, and lack of knowledge about clinical trials.

"New recruitment strategies targeting specific patient subgroups might be helpful in ensuring equal representation of women and minority groups in cancer clinical trials," the study authors conclude.

Scott      

Do You Read All Of Our Cancer Blogs?

Do you read all of the blogs published by medicineworld.org? Many of our bloggers are busy keeping you updated on the various health related topics. We publish the following blogs at this time.

Cancer blog: I manage the cancer blog with lots of help and support form other bloggers. Through this cancer blog my friends and I try to bring stories of hope for patients with cancer. The cancer blog often republishes important blog posts from other cancer related blogs at Medicineworld.org. If you are searching for a blog that covers wide variety of cancer topics, this may be the one for you.

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Colon cancer blog: Colon cancer blog is run by Sue and other bloggers. Sue brings a personal touch to the colon cancer blog since her mother died of colon cancer few years ago. She writes about stories, research news and advances in treatment related to colon cancer.

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Janet      

Lung cancer
We engage a never-ending daily struggle to understand and defeat the hidden mysteries of cancer. This is a long and laborious fight, but some moments stand out as grim reminders of the severity of the problem and ruthlessness of the enemy. We recently heard about the sad demise of Peter Jennings, who was the news anchor of ABC News for a long time.