Abstract
Background: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has historically evaluated the participation of underserved minorities within University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) clinical trials in relation to the African Americans (AA) general population within the UPCI primary service area of Allegheny County (12%). This standard appeared to be unrealistically high, due to a younger age distribution of AAs within the county.
Methods: The proportion of AAs within four separate county populations were compared, using data from 2000–2004: (a) general population, (b) invasive cancer cases (c) invasive cancer cases diagnosed or treated at UPCI‐affiliated facilities and (d) patients enrolled on UPCI's clinical therapeutic trials.
Results: The proportion of AAs within the general population was approximately 12%. However, only 9.8% of patients diagnosed with invasive cancers were AA. Approximately 9.5% of all cancer cases diagnosed or treated at UPCI facilities was AA, comparable to the county‐wide percent of AA cancer patients. Recruitment of AAs to oncology clinical trials was 7.6%, revealing a significant disparity.
Discussion: The NCI benchmark did not reflect the actual “pool” of potential AA patients. As an alternative, we compared the percentage of AAs contributing to cancer incidence with the percentage AA cancer patients treated at the research‐affiliated institutions and with the proportion of AAs enrolled on clinical therapeutic trials.
Conclusions: This methodology was successfully utilized by UPCI and should be useful as a mechanism for benchmarking recruitment of underserved and minority cancer patients at other cancer centers.
Primary Reference: Morgenlander KH, Winters SB, Lin CJ, Robertson LB, Heron DE, Herberman RB. A novel method for benchmarking clinical trial recruitment of African American cancer patients. J Clin Oncol. 2008 Nov 1;26(31):5074–7.
Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(1 Suppl):ED06-04.
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