What AML Clinical Trial Inequities Do Minority and Ethnic Groups Face?
What AML Clinical Trial Inequities Do Minority and Ethnic Groups Face? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Do minority and ethnic groups face acute myeloid leukemia (AML) clinical trial inequities? Expert Dr. Andrew Hantel from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School discusses research study results of NCI-designated cancer centers of AML versus other cancers and proactive patient advice for clinical trial access.
[ACT]IVATION TIP
“…patients to ask about where the nearest sites of care are for them that have clinical trials on at least historically, and then reaching out to those sites to ask, ‘Can I have a consultation?” Am I somebody who might be eligible for any of the clinical trials that you have?’”
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Transcript:
Lisa Hatfield:
Dr. Hantel, what primary findings are in your study regarding inequities and clinical trial participation among minoritized race and ethnic groups with cancer at the comprehensive cancer centers?
Dr. Andrew Hantel:
So we performed a couple of different studies on this, I think together, they’ve collectively found that there are significant disparities in clinical trial participation among minoritized racial and ethnic groups at comprehensive cancer centers. And just to take a step back and say, what are comprehensive cancer centers? They’re basically a designated center, and the designation is provided by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and that basically says that this place is of such and such a level of quality in terms of their delivery of cancer care and their research that they perform, and so these are generally larger academic centers that have a lot of clinical trials, have a lot of experts across different cancer types, including AML. And those are the ones that we are wondering if people had equal or equitable access to, in other cancers compared to AML.
A lot of the disparities in clinical trial participation is really because these different minoritized groups have less access to these comprehensive cancer centers, so they could really never be considered for trials, because they’re just not seen at places where the trials are taking place. This is the case for a lot of common solid tumors, such as breast and colon cancer, where very, very large proportions of patients are seen in the community.
And this means that in leukemia, however, we found that participation disparities were not only due to access, but because the leukemia is less common because a lot of docs actually almost preemptively refer some of their patients to get seen, some of the disparity is kind of shifted, and it ends up becoming not as much an issue just of access but also of getting into the trial after they’re seen at the center.
And this can be because of a variety of things, there are reasons that we can go into in a second, but we kind of also want to make the statement in the context of it not being a one-size-fits-all answer. There are some cases where comprehensive cancer centers actually both allow great access and allow equitable enrollment on their trials, and there are other comprehensive cancer centers that have had…and continued to have issues with this.
So I also just want to make sure to make that distinction. But after somebody gets down to a center, you have the process of, is there a trial at the center that’s actually right for your specific type of leukemia and the stage of the disease, and if you’re up front or relapsed or all of these other nuances, and then you have the questions of, are you eligible, are you offered that trial, and then are you interested in partaking in that trial, and is it feasible for you to participate?
So there are all these other steps after that point of access, and in general, what we saw was that it was kind of these later steps that were as much more of an issue for equitable enrollment for leukemia as that first step of access. And so it’s slightly different from what we’ve seen in other cancers, and so the answers and the solutions for that are going to be different.
So my activation tip for this question would be for patients to ask about where the nearest sites of care are for them that have clinical trials on at least historically, and then reaching out to those sites to ask, “Can I have a consultation?” Am I somebody who might be eligible for any of the clinical trials that you have?” That might be something where it does take you to that site to actually get evaluated and see if there is anything available, but that would be the first step.
