NCI Materials
Cancer clinical trials have brought enormous advances in the areas of cancer prevention, treatment and diagnosis. However, less than 5 percent of adults diagnosed with cancer each year will get treated through enrollment in a clinical trial. With broader enrollment, the effort to find new and better ways to treat and prevent cancer might be swifter.
Cancer researchers and others are working to understand what barriers to enrollment exist for people who might otherwise benefit from a clinical trial.
Study Identifies Cancer Patients' Concerns About Joining a Trial
(Posted: 02/28/2006) - In one of the only studies to systematically assess cancer patients' feelings about taking part in clinical trials, researchers have identified a number of barriers to enrollment. Two of the main barriers are patients' concern that joining a trial might reduce their quality of life and that they would receive a placebo, according to the February 2006 issue of the Lancet Oncology.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509110416im_/http://www.cancer.gov/images/spacer.gif)
Minorities Just as Willing to Participate in Health Research
(Posted: 02/06/2006) - Contrary to conventional wisdom, Americans from ethnic and racial minority groups are as willing to take part in health research studies, when invited to do so, as other groups of Americans, according to the Feb. 2006 Public Library of Science - Medicine.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509110416im_/http://www.cancer.gov/images/spacer.gif)
Electronic Alert System Increases Patient Referral and Enrollment in a Clinical Trial
(Posted: 11/02/2005) - Doctors at an academic medical center referred 10 times as many patients to a clinical trial, and enrolled twice as many, when they were alerted by means of a computerized medical record system that their patients might be eligible to take part in the trial, according to a report in the Oct. 24, 2005, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509110416im_/http://www.cancer.gov/images/spacer.gif)
What Barriers Keep Older Patients Out of Cancer Clinical Trials?
(Posted: 10/18/2005) - The authors of this report from the May 1, 2005, issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology systematically review what's known about the barriers preventing older patients from taking part in cancer clinical trials.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509110416im_/http://www.cancer.gov/images/spacer.gif)
Age Alone Should Not Prevent Older Patients from Enrolling in Clinical Trials
(Posted: 10/18/2005, Updated: 04/04/2007) - Evidence is mounting that persons over the age of 65 who are reasonably fit tolerate the aggressive chemotherapy treatments often given in cancer clinical trials as well as younger persons do. According to these studies, age alone should not be a barrier to participation in clinical trials of new cancer treatments.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509110416im_/http://www.cancer.gov/images/spacer.gif)
Removing Insurance Barriers Not Enough to Improve Clinical Trial Participation
(Posted: 08/31/2005) - In two studies, researchers from Yale University School of Medicine conclude that the removal of insurance coverage barriers is not enough by itself to improve enrollment in cancer clinical trials.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509110416im_/http://www.cancer.gov/images/spacer.gif)
FDA Study Shows Older People Are Underrepresented in Cancer Clinical Trials
(Posted: 05/31/2003, Reviewed: 10/12/2005) - A large study by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reinforces earlier findings that, although most patients diagnosed with cancer are aged 65 or older, relatively few older patients with cancer are enrolled in clinical trials of new cancer treatments in the United States.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509110416im_/http://www.cancer.gov/images/spacer.gif)
Doctors, Patients Face Different Barriers to Clinical Trials
(Posted: 04/11/2001, Reviewed: 01/19/2005) - As suggested by two surveys and a series of focus groups, the vast majority of cancer patients are unaware of clinical trials and physicians aren't enrolling patients because they don't have the time, staff, or funding to do so.
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