A novel approach to improving clinical trial referral and enrollment for patients with cancer: A cross-sectional analysis.

Abstract

e23310 Background: Participation in clinical trials is fundamental to advancements in cancer treatment. Recent data estimates that only 7.1% of patients with cancer are enrolled into treatment trials. At present, ClinicalTrials.gov is one of the largest, publicly available online repositories of research trials. A Clinical Trials Navigator (CTN) program was launched in 2019 and analyzed the usability of this tool alongside four other repositories, finding outdated, insufficient, or inaccurate information. The CTN program developed a novel methodology for creating cancer-specific ‘Master Lists’ that house a more accurate repository of clinical trial information. The objective of this abstract is to review the successes and challenges with the novel Master List in facilitating the referral and enrollment of patients with cancer in clinical trials. Methods: Master Lists were developed by skilled clinical trial navigators and maintained monthly by performing searches on five different research trial repositories (ClinicalTrials.gov, Canadian Cancer Trials, Clinical Trials Ontario, Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Network, and Q-CROC). Patients interested in participating in the CTN program are able to self-refer or be referred by a health care professional. The Master List is used to search for eligible studies. Weekly reviews identify and prioritize the available potential trials. The patient, sponsors, and principal investigators are contacted by a CTN MD as part of the MD FollowUp program to review interest and availability of the preferred trials. The Master List is updated in response to information gained from direct contact with study coordinators throughout follow up. Results: Throughout this study period (March 3, 2025 – January 25, 2026),133 people participated in the CTN program and a total of 114 clinical trial sites were contacted pertaining to 78 unique clinical trials in Canada and the United States. The Master List was updated 61 times for these 78 trials with information not available on ClinicaTrials.gov. We have compared accrual onto clinical trials pre and post addition of the MD FollowUp program. Prior to the implementation of the MD FollowUp program, 18% of those referred to trials were accrued to interventional trials. Post implementation of the MD FollowUp program, this improved to a 42% accrual rate. Conclusions: Overall, this study highlights a solution to improve accessibility of clinical trial information. This dynamic Master List with consistently updated information allowed an improvement in successful referral to accrual ratio, thereby improving the efficacy of the clinical trials unit. The Master List serves as a highly comprehensive and accurate resource that is successfully used to enroll patients with cancer into clinical trials. This is expected to translate into improved clinician engagement in the clinical trials process.