SAN ANTONIO – A video tool may be a promising strategy for improving breast cancer clinical trial participation among black women with cancer, a study presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) has shown.1
“Increasing participation in cancer clinical trials among black patients is crucial as they are markedly underrepresented in clinical research and they experience disproportionately higher cancer mortality rates, greater burden of disease, and lower survival rates,” said Sandra Swain, MD, Medical Director of Washington Cancer Institute, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, DC.
A pilot study in black patients with cancer showed that a video targeting 6 attitudinal and cultural barriers to clinical trial participation significantly increased intent to participate in a clinical trial from 45.4% to 79.6% (P < .001) and positively changed attitudes toward trial participation.
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Therefore, researchers sought to evaluate therapeutic clinical trial participation rates among black patients with breast cancer compared with historical controls after viewing a culturally tailored educational video that addresses barriers to participation.
For the study, investigators enrolled 200 patients with an average age of 59 years. Of those, 74.5% had stage I to III disease, 29% were married, 83.5% had 1 or more children, and 65% had post-high school education.
Of the 200 patients enrolled, 19.5% signed consent to participate in a therapeutic clinical trial after viewing the video and 13.5% actually enrolled in a clinical trial compared with a 6% clinical trial enrollment rate among historical controls (P < .001).
In addition, 27% of patients were eligible to participate in an available clinical trial. Of those, 72% signed consent/enrolled within 6 months of the video intervention, while the rest declined.
“The proportion of participants expressing likelihood to enroll in a therapeutic trial significantly increased after watching the video, both immediately and 7 to 12 days after the intervention,” Dr Swain added. “A significant pre- to post-follow-up difference (P < .05) was demonstrated in 81% of the 31 attitudinal barrier measures.
“These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of a culturally tailored video for improving clinical trial accrual among black cancer patients,” said Dr Swain. “This simple intervention can be rapidly and widely disseminated.”
The researchers next plan to disseminate the video nationally to National Cancer Institute cooperative groups, cancer centers, and community settings; but additional strategies are needed to target facilitators of population-specific recruitment, enrollment, and retention in both therapeutic and nontherapeutic clinical studies.
Reference
1. Swain S, Robinson BN, Newman AF, et al. Increasing participation in research – breast cancer (Inspire-BrC). Poster presented at: 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; December 6-10, 2016; San Antonio, TX.
