Disparities in Cancer Clinical Trials
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WINDY DEAN-COLOMB: When precision medicine came about, which means getting the right drug to the right patient at the right time for the right disease, we thought that was going to be the game-changer. And for a lot of cancer, it was. But unfortunately, that information did not translate to all population. And therefore, in certain instances, the disparities grew.
If you look at clinical trials in the US, we see that 80% of participants in the clinical trials are Caucasian men above the age of 70. That's one of the biggest problems because oftentimes, when I see a patient of African-American descent, I give them treatment based upon the data that we try to generalize from the clinical trials, but we really often don't know how that drug works in those patients. Oftentimes, they may experience more toxicity because of pharmacogenetic issues that has not been addressed in a clinical trial. That has implications also for women.
So being able to design clinical trials that will benefit, not only our general population but making sure that we look at the molecular profile of all patients with cancer before we start a treatment, before we start a clinical trial, and then we design a clinical trial to be able to find markers that they may have that we could target with a drug.
Yes, and this whole misinformation about clinical trials or lack of participation of minority group, but a lot of it is not correct. Actually, what studies have shown is that if you educate them about the benefit of clinical trial, African-Americans are more than willing to participate. But oftentimes, there's a disparity in presenting the information and the benefit to them, but not only African-American, any minority population.
So one of the great things that I'm looking forward to in the future is that designing clinical trials that will really allow us to be able to use next gen sequencing and a person's genomic profile to really design clinical trials that would affect people from all groups and all walks of life.
If you look at clinical trials in the US, we see that 80% of participants in the clinical trials are Caucasian men above the age of 70. That's one of the biggest problems because oftentimes, when I see a patient of African-American descent, I give them treatment based upon the data that we try to generalize from the clinical trials, but we really often don't know how that drug works in those patients. Oftentimes, they may experience more toxicity because of pharmacogenetic issues that has not been addressed in a clinical trial. That has implications also for women.
So being able to design clinical trials that will benefit, not only our general population but making sure that we look at the molecular profile of all patients with cancer before we start a treatment, before we start a clinical trial, and then we design a clinical trial to be able to find markers that they may have that we could target with a drug.
Yes, and this whole misinformation about clinical trials or lack of participation of minority group, but a lot of it is not correct. Actually, what studies have shown is that if you educate them about the benefit of clinical trial, African-Americans are more than willing to participate. But oftentimes, there's a disparity in presenting the information and the benefit to them, but not only African-American, any minority population.
So one of the great things that I'm looking forward to in the future is that designing clinical trials that will really allow us to be able to use next gen sequencing and a person's genomic profile to really design clinical trials that would affect people from all groups and all walks of life.