Patient enrollment in clinical trials for cancer therapies has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an article in the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
The article details the results of a survey conducted by the Cancer Research Institute and health IT and clinical research company IQVIA. The survey, conducted between March 23 and April 3, polled 36 researchers who are conducting cancer clinical trials at institutions around the world.
Survey results show that only 20 percent of the respondents in the U.S. and in Asia and only 14 percent of respondents in Europe are continuing to enroll patients at the usual rate in those regions.
The article's authors also conducted additional analysis of data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a U.S. database. They gathered data on May 12 and examined the number of interventional cancer trials suspended in March and April due to COVID-19. They found that more than 200 interventional oncology studies were suspended in the months studied due to the pandemic.