Faltering Cancer Trials

Faltering Cancer Trials should get everyone's attention. The NYTimes Opinion piece opens, "The nation's most important system for judging the clinical effectiveness of cancer treatments is approaching 'a state of crisis.'"

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently reviewed the performance of clinical trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The NCI system flunked. Badly.

My perspective on the issue is shaped by having been:

• a subject in 3 separate clinical trials (1993, 1994 ,1997), 
• a patient advocate for a couple of years for NCI trial evaluations
• the patient advocate for one trial's data safety and monitoring board from beginning to end (~7 yrs).

1. In 2010, clinical trials are the most advanced tool for learning truths about preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer.
2. Our current system is overly cumbersome and inefficient.
3. We can't afford not to fix this.

Admitting we have a problem is the first step. The next stop is for all Americans to insist that the scientific community receive the guidance and support needed to overhaul the system.

While the NYTimes editorial has an ominous tone throughout, the 63-page report of the committee charged with analyzing barriers to efficiency in our nation's government-sponsored studies gives me hope. We can -- and must! -- solve the problem of inefficiency so that we can solve the problems of cancer and other diseases.

For further information on this issue, I recommend this 3-page report brief.

Comments

[Lisa]

Great timing, as always. Doug and I were just talking about this yesterday. I hadn't realized that he was only subject number 45 in a study looking for 1,000 subjects. Not enough people get a diagnosis for this specific form of leukemia, and the study will likely time out/become surpassed by other research before they ever get definitive results. I'm glad that someone besides us is talking about it. Just hope that someone listens.

[Kirk]

Thanks for highlighting this important report and its implications. Implicit in the importance of clinical trials is the importance to patients of seeking out opinions and/or treatment at nationally recognized cancer centers that actually can and will match patients with trials, when appropriate.

Kirk