National Institutes of Health Funding to Support Radiation Oncology Research: A Comparative Trend Analysis Over a Decade, 2011-2021.

PURPOSE

Funding to support radiation oncology discovery and research is essential for advancement in therapeutic strategies to improve outcomes for patients with cancer. We aimed to comprehensively characterize trends in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding that supports radiation oncology research over time to identify trends, successes, and areas for improvement.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

We queried the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools Expenditures and Results database to identify all awarded grants to support radiation oncology research conducted by principal investigators at academic centers, using 3 individual years as representative samples (2011, 2016, and 2021). Abstracts and keywords for resulting grants were manually searched to identify resulting awards topically related to the field of radiation oncology; principal investigators departmental affiliation was also used as a supplemental method serving as a sensitivity analysis to define radiation oncology-related research. Descriptive statistics were used to describe patterns in funding. χ testing was used to assess differences in proportions of categorical variables.

RESULTS

Less than 0.5% of the total NIH budget and < 2% of the total National Cancer Institute budget supported radiation oncology research during the representative study years. There were no significant changes in this allocation pattern over time. A small cohort of institutions held a relatively large proportion of NIH-supported radiation oncology grant funding. Individuals holding PhDs alone received the majority of funding (62%), whereas those with dual-degrees (MD/PhD) held 21% of funding, and those with MD alone were awarded 17% of funding. There was a trend toward an increased proportion of grants awarded to MD/PhDs over time (24% vs 15% in 2021 and 2011, respectively, = .075).

CONCLUSIONS

Despite radiation therapy's essential role in multidisciplinary cancer care, NIH, and National Cancer Institute funding to support radiation oncology research has remained disproportionally low over the last decade. These data may be useful to inform future policy aimed at promoting research advancement in radiation oncology both at the micro (individual) as well as macro (institutional and national) level.