April 26, 2004
Clinical trial participants often do not receive trial results
A. Partridge, MD, MPH
Most oncology physicians and nurses do not share the results of clinical trials with their patients who are participants, even though they believe that their patients want the results and that routinely offering results would not have a negative effect on patients.
To examine the issue, Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber, and colleagues surveyed oncology clinicians, including physicians and nurses, to discover their attitudes about disseminating results to clinical trial participants and whether they ever do so.
Although 80 percent of those who responded to the survey indicated that trial results should be offered to patients in the trials and 72 percent indicated that their patients wanted to know the results of the trial, 62 percent responded that they offer trial results to patients less than one-fifth of the time. The top three concerns responders had about offering trial results to patients were the potential negative effect on the patient, that the patient may have difficulty in interpreting the results, and consumption of resources, including time and money. Of concern, about 15 percent of responders believed that an obligation to offer study results to participants would make them less likely to enroll patients in studies.
