Race & institutional factors play an important role in pharmacogenomic trial participation
White patients and larger well-supported institutions are more likely to have higher participation rates in pharmacogenomic trials
2015-07-28
(Press-News.org) TAMPA, Fla. - Cancer therapy has evolved from a "one-size-fits-all" type of treatment plan to a personalized approach based on a patient's type of cancer, the protein and genetic markers found in their tumors and their response to therapy. Important aspects of the personalized approach are pharmacogenomic studies that analyze associations between genetic variations and patient drug responses. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have published a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that analyzed the participation rate of patients in pharmacogenomic trials.
The development of personalized therapy requires a high number of patients from all races and ethnic backgrounds willing to participate in large National Cancer Institute (NCI)-sponsored studies that analyze genetic markers associated with particular tumors and therapeutic responses. For the majority of these trials, patients enroll to be in the treatment portion of the trial and are not required to participate in the genomic analysis. If they choose to participate in a genomic analysis, patients need to give consent and be willing to donate tissue and or blood samples.
Moffitt researchers wanted to evaluate the participation rate in the pharmacogenomic analysis portion of NCI-sponsored trials. They looked at demographic and participation data from seven large phase 3 trials that occurred between 2002 and 2013. The trials included 8,456 patients with either Hodgkin's Lymphoma, breast, gastric, colorectal, colon, pancreatic or prostate cancer.
They discovered that the majority of patients, 81 percent, were willing to participate in the pharmacogenomic portion of the clinical trial. They also found that white patients were almost twice as likely to participate in the tests as African American patients.
"As the field of oncology moves to biomarker-driven therapy, there is a concern that important minority groups are being inadvertently left out of the very research that will find the 'right' marker to guide therapy for people in their community," said Howard L. McLeod, PharmD, medical director of the DeBartolo Family Personalized Medicine Institute at Moffitt.
When the researchers evaluated why racial differences existed, they found that the type of institution a patient is treated at plays an important determining factor in pharmacogenomic study participation. Patients treated at well-supported sites had higher participation rates for both whites and nonwhites than smaller less-supported sites. Importantly, the researchers discovered that as racial diversity increases at a hospital site, the participation rate for both white and nonwhite patients decreases.
"This suggests that the infrastructure of the clinic is a driver of differences in enrollment in these biomarker studies, not merely a patient's heritage," explained McLeod.
There are a number of factors at the patient, physician, institution and community level that serve as incentives or hindrances for clinical trial participation, including beliefs and attitudes, awareness, opportunities and resources. The Moffitt researchers believe that future studies need to determine why less supported clinical institutes are not offering more sophisticated studies in the hope that pharmacogenomics participation rates could increase for all minority groups.
INFORMATION:
This research was published in the July 9 online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. It was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute (U10CA180821, U10CA180882), the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology and grants to the legacy of CALGB (CA31946, CA47559 and CA41287).
About Moffitt Cancer Center
Located in Tampa, Moffitt is one of only 41 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, a distinction that recognizes Moffitt's excellence in research, its contributions to clinical trials, prevention and cancer control. Moffitt is the top-ranked cancer hospital in Florida and has been listed in U.S. News & World Report as one of the "Best Hospitals" for cancer since 1999. With more than 4,600 team members, Moffitt has an economic impact on the state of $1.9 billion. For more information, visit MOFFITT.org, and follow the Moffitt momentum on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-07-28
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-- Making Caring Common (MCC), a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, today released new research that suggests that many teen boys and teen girls--and some of their parents--have biases against teen girls as leaders. These biases could be powerful barriers to leadership for a generation of teen girls with historically high levels of education who are key to closing our nation's gender gap in leadership. The report also suggests that much can be done to prevent and reduce gender biases in children.
Titled "Leaning Out: Teen Girls and Gender ...
2015-07-28
Researchers from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have elucidated at the molecular level how an otherwise innocuous inherited mutation that is quite common in European populations interacts with a spontaneous somatic mutation to promote the development of Ewing's sarcoma.
Ewing's sarcoma is an aggressive bone cancer that occurs primarily in children, adolescents and young adults. The tumor cells are characterized by a single spontaneous 'driver mutation', which results in formation of the oncogenic fusion gene EWSR1-FLI1. Its protein product EWSR1-FLI1, ...
2015-07-28
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The world's deserts may be storing some of the climate-changing carbon dioxide emitted by human activities, a new study suggests. Massive aquifers underneath deserts could hold more carbon than all the plants on land, according to the new research.
Humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. About 40 percent of this carbon stays in the atmosphere and roughly 30 percent enters the ocean, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Scientists thought the remaining carbon was taken ...
2015-07-28
Facial motion capture - the same technology used to develop realistic computer graphics in video games and movies - has been used to identify differences between children with childhood apraxia of speech and those with other types of speech disorders, finds a new study by NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
"In our study, we see evidence of a movement deficit in children with apraxia of speech, but more importantly, aspects of their speech movements look different from children with other speech disorders," said study author Maria Grigos, ...
2015-07-28
Depressive symptoms and mood in the moment may predict momentary pain among rheumatoid arthritis patients, according to Penn State researchers.
"The results of this study link momentary positive and negative mood with momentary pain in daily life," said Jennifer E. Graham-Engeland, associate professor of biobehavioral health. "That is, we found evidence consistent with a common, but largely untested, contention that mood in the moment is associated with fluctuation in pain and pain-related restrictions." The link was examined among individuals with rheumatoid arthritis, ...
2015-07-28
Researchers at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), Cambridge University and New York University, led by Modesto Orozco, Group Leader at IRB Barcelona, Director of Life Sciences at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) and Professor at the University of Barcelona (UB), have determined the mechanics behind of one of the most common epigenetic modifications: histone-tail acetylation. Acetylation is a means by which a cell can control the expression of its genes.
The study published in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society ...
2015-07-28
July 28, 2015, Shenzhen, China -Researchers from BGI, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, etc., reported the study on the oral and the gut microbiome in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The results show that the gut and oral microbiome are involved in the pathophysiology and management of RA and provide indication for developing microbiome-assisted personalized treatments. The latest finding was published online today in Nature Medicine.
RA is a debilitating autoimmune disorder affecting tens of millions of people worldwide, while the mortality in the patients increases ...
2015-07-28
WASHINGTON, DC - July 28, 2015 - Microbes contributing to cystic fibrosis (CF) are able to survive in saliva and mucus that is chemically heterogeneous, including significant portions that are largely devoid of oxygen, according to a study published this week in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
The study, which evaluated sputum samples from 22 pediatric CF patients, found that the microbiologic environment can differ between patients, and even within the same patient at different points in time. Researchers also noted ...
2015-07-28
Baby rats whose mothers were fed a high-fat diet had larger than normal hearts with fewer taste receptors for bitter flavours, according to new UNSW research.
The study, led by the UNSW Head of Pharmacology Professor Margaret Morris and published in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases, examined the effect of a fatty maternal diet on receptors in the hearts of newborn rats, including those which detect certain flavours.
Taste receptors have only recently been shown to exist outside the mouth, at sites including the heart, where both bitter and umami - or ...
2015-07-28
Since mice share 90 percent of our genes they play an important role in understanding human genetics. The European Mouse Disease Clinic (EUMODIC) brought together scientists from across Europe to investigate the functions of 320 genes in mice. Over half of these genes had no previously known role, and the remaining genes were poorly understood.
In order to study gene function, the EUMODIC consortium produced mouse lines which each had a single gene removed. These mouse lines were then analyzed in mouse clinics, where each line was assessed by a series of tests and investigations, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Race & institutional factors play an important role in pharmacogenomic trial participation
White patients and larger well-supported institutions are more likely to have higher participation rates in pharmacogenomic trials
