Cancer trials saw the most disruption in early summer of last year amid the first wave of the pandemic but were swift to get back on course.
This is the finding of a new study, published in Nature this week by the Cancer Research Institute (CRI), which found the total number of stopped trials in all diseases peaked in June last year, whereas those focused solely in oncology peaked the month before.
But the study found that in the five months since November 2020, the number of stopped other trials (i.e., those not in cancer), has increased again, and the COVID-19 vaccine rollout “has not changed this trend.”
Drilling down into the numbers, the CRI team found that 433 trials were terminated or withdrawn in the past year, 38 of which were in oncology. The cancer trials that were reactivated (274) usually did so in a matter of months, regardless of tumor type, whereas those trials that were not restarted (74) have remained stopped for most of the year (38).
“Although most patient enrollment in oncology trials occurred in reactivated studies (111,266), 99,940 patients were planned to be enrolled in trials that are still stopped and nearly 1,200 patients in trials that were terminated or withdrawn.” It said that most studies were early-phase or had non-registered phases.
Most of the stopped cancer tests were in solid tumor indications, with a majority in breast cancer, the team found.
“The pandemic affected all trials during the earlier waves, but the impact on oncology trials has been less severe compared with non-oncology trials,” the CRI concluded.
“As vaccines continue to be rolled out, we expect this impact to continue to lessen.”
Earlier this year, a study painted a bleak picture, when data out from Medidata and published by the JAMA network found oncology tests dropped off dramatically in the first wave of the pandemic last year.
The data found a 60% reduction in new oncology trials globally during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (from January to May 2020). The Nature study, going beyond these dates, shows that while there was a big hit initially, the oncology trial sector has been swift to return to normality.