Enrolment of Patients to Clinical Trials in Haematological Cancer in NSW: Current status, perceived barriers and opportunities for improvement

Program evaluation
01 Sep 2008
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Randomised clinical trials are the study design least susceptible to bias and remain the gold standard for the evaluation of therapeutic efficacy.

Several positive outcomes have been associated with clinical trials. These include access to the latest and potentially most effective therapies, access to otherwise unavailable or expensive drugs, greater scrutiny of care and faster acceptance of emerging therapies.

Recruitment of patients into clinical trials remains a significant challenge in clinical research, with adult recruitment rates as low as 2 - 4% commonly seen in North America. Published data on accrual rates to clinical trials in Australia are scarce. Ellis et al reported that, in one Australian state over a 6 month period in 1990, only 5% of women with breast cancer received adjuvant systemic therapy as part of a clinical trial. While an accrual rate of 2-4% for trials in haematological malignancies in New South Wales (NSW) has been assumed, activity has not been documented.

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