Advertisement
Recommendations focus on streamlining research and improving access to care
No industry has been more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than healthcare. While some changes in clinical research and care have been disruptive and damaging, others have brought about needed improvements to research practices and care delivery.
Advertisement
Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. Policy
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) convened a steering group of research and medical professionals to look at how emerging data and lessons learned from the pandemic should inform future policies and practices in oncology. Their report was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
“We have made recommendations to keep some of the positive changes brought on by the pandemic and build on them rather than going back to the way things were beforehand,” says Nathan Pennell, MD, PhD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center Lung Cancer Medical Oncology Program, who was a member of the ASCO Steering Group’s Research Task Force.
Last spring, when the pandemic hit, many pharmaceutical companies quickly halted or delayed trials, resulting in a steep decline in enrollment. This led research regulators, sponsors and funders to introduce more flexible regulations and procedures that ASCO and others have long supported. They made cancer clinical trials more accessible and efficient and less costly, while maintaining patient safety, scientific integrity and data quality.
The ASCO report recommends the following changes:
Advertisement
“Clinical research has become so onerous, it has kept people and institutions from conducting studies. Everyone is enthusiastic about making trials cheaper and more efficient and the results more broadly applicable to patients. Hopefully over the next few years, we will see institutions adopting these recommendations,” says Dr. Pennell.
While critical cancer treatment continued during the pandemic, routine cancer screenings were put on hold. “We lost a year of screening and identifying early-stage patients, resulting in a huge drop in patients being seen and adverse consequences. It will be a challenge to get back to where we were,” says Dr. Pennell.
The pandemic exposed longstanding inequities in healthcare access and outcomes, one of the areas addressed in ASCO’s cancer care delivery recommendations:
Advertisement
ASCO will be working to advance these changes to ensure that the healthcare system and ASCO members are best positioned to care for patients in the years following the public health emergency.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Making sense of the fast-moving treatment landscape
Combination therapy may help address underlying disease
Major study demonstrates importance of having a multidisciplinary approach to treatment for large, locally advanced tumors
Highly personalized treatment shrinks tumors resistant to immunotherapy
Best practices for reducing toxicities
Highlighting treatment gaps and challenges in the management of rare condition
Explaining common misconceptions about chimeric antigen receptor therapy
Slower drug elimination from the body among females may impact safety and efficacy