Markman Maurie, Petersen Judy, Montgomery Robert
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Mail Box #121, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
J Cancer Res Clin Oncol. 2008 Jan;134(1):115-8. doi: 10.1007/s00432-007-0263-4. Epub 2007 Jun 28.
A number of factors have been identified as being associated with the documented low accrual rate of minorities into cancer-related clinical trials in the USA. An important issue is the fundamental interest, or lack thereof, of these specific patient populations in actually considering study participation.
To examine this issue, aggregate data were analyzed from a proprietary Internet-based decision support program (NexProfiler Treatment Option Tools for Cancer, NexCura, Seattle, WA, USA) embedded into approximately 100 cancer-associated Web sites where responding patients (or their families) were asked, but not required, to identify their race/ethnicity (African-American, Asian-American, Caucasian and Hispanic) and to also respond to the question, "Are you interested in learning about clinical trials?".
Of the > 60,000 patients who both self-identified their race/ethnicity and responded to the question regarding their desire to learn about clinical trials, approximately 10% were from the minority (non-Caucasian) groups. Of note, in all four malignancies analyzed (breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate) and in both patients < or = 60 and > 60 years of age, each of the three non-Caucasian populations expressed an interest in learning about such studies that was equal to, if not greater than, that observed in the Caucasian respondents.
Assuming these provocative results regarding self-declared desire to learn about clinical trials can be confirmed by others with similar Internet-associated databases, this analysis suggests Web-based recruitment strategies may be an effective method to communicate with minority populations in the US (and, perhaps, elsewhere) with a specific interest in considering participation in cancer clinical trials.
在美国，许多因素被认为与少数族裔参与癌症相关临床试验的记录在案的低入组率有关。一个重要问题是这些特定患者群体在实际考虑参与研究方面的根本兴趣，或缺乏这种兴趣。
为研究此问题，对嵌入约100个癌症相关网站的基于互联网的专有决策支持程序（美国华盛顿州西雅图市NexCura公司的NexProfiler癌症治疗选择工具）的汇总数据进行了分析。在这些网站上，应答患者（或其家属）被要求（但非必须）确定其种族/族裔（非裔美国人、亚裔美国人、白种人和西班牙裔），并回答“你有兴趣了解临床试验吗？”这个问题。
在超过60000名既自行确定了种族/族裔又回答了关于了解临床试验意愿问题的患者中，约10%来自少数族裔（非白种人）群体。值得注意的是，在分析的所有四种恶性肿瘤（乳腺癌、结直肠癌、肺癌和前列腺癌）中，以及在年龄≤60岁和＞60岁的患者中，三个非白种人群体中每一个群体对了解此类研究表达的兴趣即使不高于白种人应答者，至少也是相当的。
假设关于自行宣称了解临床试验意愿的这些引人深思的结果能够被拥有类似互联网相关数据库的其他人所证实，那么该分析表明基于网络的招募策略可能是与美国（或许还有其他地方）对考虑参与癌症临床试验有特定兴趣的少数族裔群体进行沟通的有效方法。
