Making Clinical Trial Participation a Standard of Care in Oncology

Dr. Pedro Barata and Dr. Ravin Garg discuss strategies to increase trial representation, including leveraging trial navigators and prioritizing pragmatic trial models, as featured in the ASCO Educational Book article, "Practical Guide to Clinical Trial Accessibility: Making Trial Participation a Standard of Care."

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Pedro Barata: Hello, and welcome to By the Book, a podcast from ASCO featuring compelling perspectives from authors and editors of the ASCO Educational Book. I'm Dr. Pedro Barata. I am a medical oncologist at University Hospital Seidman Cancer Center and an associate professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. I am also the associate editor of the ASCO Educational Book.

We know that in recent years, the oncology community has increasingly prioritized the need to modernize clinical trial eligibility, reduce patient burden, and enhance diversity in trial participation. On that note, today we will be speaking about ways to enhance access to clinical trials with Dr. Ravin Garg. He is a hematologist oncologist at Maryland Oncology Hematology and also an assistant professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Garg is also the co-author of a fantastic paper in the ASCO Educational Book titled, "Practical Guide to Clinical Trial Accessibility: Making Trial Participation a Standard of Care." 

Dr. Garg, welcome. Thanks for being here, and congrats on your paper.

Dr. Ravin Garg: Thank you for having me, Pedro. I am excited to be here.

Dr. Pedro Barata: [KI1]  Your paper is a wonderful, multidisciplinary piece that actually features perspectives from the different stakeholders, right? The patient advocacy, industry, community practice, and academia about these challenges in making trials more available.

This podcast is a wonderful platform. It reaches out to a lot of folks within our community. So, I will start by asking you the obvious. Why do you think it is a must read for our community, for our listeners?

Dr. Ravin Garg: So Pedro, thanks again for inviting me. You do a great job with these podcasts. 

So, I think first and foremost, oncologists right now are under a lot of stress, just in terms of clinical volume. There is concern for research money, and how we get the best care for our patients. So I think this article is very important because it helps bring together,