Neoplasia: An International Journal for Oncology Research (Dec 2023)

Patient recruitment into clinical studies of solid malignancies during the COVID-19 pandemic in a tertiary cancer center

  • Jens von der Grün,
  • Maiwand Ahmadsei,
  • Isabel Breyer,
  • Christian Britschgi,
  • Daniel Eberli,
  • Thomas Hermanns,
  • Joanna Mangana,
  • Henrik Petrowsky,
  • Egle Ramelyte,
  • Patrick Roth,
  • Gabriel Schär,
  • Isabelle Opitz,
  • Michael Weller,
  • Andreas Wicki,
  • Isabell Witzel,
  • Panagiotis Balermpas,
  • Matthias Guckenberger

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 46
p. 100946

Abstract

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Background and purpose: To analyze clinical trial activities and patient recruitment numbers into prospective clinical studies for solid malignancies during the COVID-19 pandemic in a tertiary cancer center. Materials and methods: Patient recruitment numbers in prospective clinical studies of solid malignancies were retrospectively analyzed for the years 2019 – 2021 at the Comprehensive Cancer Center Zurich (CCCZ). Changes in recruitment numbers were tested for association with organ-specific subunits, as well as organizational and treatment-related trial characteristics. To assess differences between categorical variables, Chi-squared test was used. For uni- and multivariate analysis, Cox proportional hazards were calculated. Results: In 2019, there were a total of 107 studies (registry trials, clinical phase I-III trials, and translational studies) recruiting 304 patients at the CCCZ. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, there were 120 and 125 active trials with a total recruitment of 355 and 666 patients, respectively. No significant differences between the subunits and study characteristics in changes of patient recruitment in clinical phase I-III trials were identified when the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (2019) was compared to the first year of the pandemic (2020) and to 2020-2021. Conclusions: Despite healthcare systems around the world have experienced significant disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, data from our tertiary cancer center showed that clinical trial activities were maintained at a high level during the pandemic.

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