The pandemic has made lung cancer research more difficult

A new study published Thursday highlights one of the indirect harms of the pandemic: Scthe ientists are difficulty in recruiting volunteers for their lung cancer research. Research has found that recruitment in clinical trials decreased by 43% in 2020 compared to the previous year, forcing researchers to propose ways to reduce attrition throughout the year.

The pandemic and the distancing and movement restrictions adopted in response to it have resulted in significant changes in our society, especially in the early days. Studies have shown, for example, that emergency room visits for an illness unrelated to covid decreases last year, as well as other important but not necessarily urgent medical services like cancer screenings. The new search, present this week at the annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), seems to show that cancer research has taken a big hit, too much.

IASLC-affiliated researchers reviewed publicly available recruitment data from lung cancer trials around the world in 2019 and 2020; they also interviewed some scientists involved in these trials. According to lead author Matthew Smeltzer, an epidemiologist at the University of Memphis, they were able to review 171 trials from 173 research sites in 45 countries, although most were from North America, Europe, and Asia.

Compared to 2019, Smeltzer and his team found, registrations had fallen by 43% in 2020, with the most severe drop seen between April and August. When asked, scientists said their most common challenges were fewer eligible patients (67%); difficulty to keep pre-established study protocols, such as in-person site visits (61%); and the trials being purely and simply temporarily suspended (60%). Researchers also reported that volunteers were the most worried about contracting covid-19 (83%), travel restrictions (47%), and securing transportation (38%).

“The decline in clinical trial registrations is worrying. and could cause delays in completing the trials, ”Smeltzer told Gizmodo in an email.

The pandemic has had ripple effects across medicine and science. Earlier this week, a new report found that covid-19 has indented the public health fight against other major fatal diseases such as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, both in the prevention and treatment of new cases. And although clinical research often takes years to unfold, lung cancer has been one of the areas who saw relatively quick and probably saved lives advances in recent years.

The silver lining, Smeltzer and his team found, is that scientists were able to adapt somewhat. Although covid-19 cases continue to increase over time around the world, the decline in enrollments has slowed. Some of the strategies scientists employed in these trials included changing the study design to allow remote monitoring or telehealth visits, sending medication to patients, and simply postponing visits.

The authors of this research (which, it should be noted, has not yet undergone a formal peer review), did not review the data from 2021, so they do not want to speculate on the how registrations for lung cancer trials have gone this year. . But Smeltzer believes some of the methods used to continue testing during the pandemic could be widely adopted even after this crisis is over.

“I think many of the mitigation strategy sites used during the pandemic, aimed at providing more flexibility and taking advantage of modern technology, could improve clinical trials beyond the pandemic. There seems to be momentum to make some of these changes permanent for cancer trials, ”he said.