Enhancing Diversity in CLL Clinical Trials
In Partnership With
Ira Zackon, MD, explains how clinicians can ensure clinical trial patient populations are more inclusive and minorities are better represented.
Ira Zackon, MD, a hematologist/oncologist with New York Oncology Hematology, and a senior medical director with Ontada, a data science company part of McKesson, explains how clinicians can ensure clinical trial patient populations are more inclusive and minorities are better represented, specifically regarding patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
Transcription:
0:09 | Clearly…clinical trials underrepresent the diversity of our American population. There are efforts to educate more about clinical trials. One of the things that we do experience is a lower level of trust, sometimes in medical interventions, and then the idea of being on an experimental trial, sometimes that comes up more in Black patients. I experienced that when I get to know my patients, for example, with sickle cell anemia who sometimes do not always like to be in the hospital or go to the hospital, but they must, they don't feel that they are necessarily trusting in that encounter, or they are looked at as individuals. Understanding that can be a factor [is important]. We must build trust.
1:17 | We are using some technology tools that can, depending on what disease, be able to create some triggers that identify and alert the research team that there is a potential patient, and then you can do more outreach to make sure that the clinical trial option is offered and that [there is education around] that. Hopefully there will be full participation in the potential of that trial. We need to use technology tools, as well as make a commitment to the trial that we need to have a target X number of this patient population and be powered enough so that it is representative in the study. I think we are certainly there in terms of understanding the need and what tools can we bring in the clinical trials and research programs to enhance that. I think technology is going to be able to at least support the identification of people to enhance that outreach, and we want to make sure these opportunities exist.
