Clinical trials in urological oncology: COVID-19 and the potential need for a new perspective
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Clinical trials in urological oncology: COVID‑19 and the potential need for a new perspective Jiasian Teh1,2 · Ellen O’Connor1,2 · Jasamine Coles‑Black2 · Nathan Lawrentschuk1,3,4 Received: 1 June 2020 / Accepted: 14 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the suspension, termination or alteration of thousands of clinical trials as the health emergency escalated globally. Whilst the rapid suspension of certain clinical trials was necessary to ensure the safety of high-risk or vulnerable trial participants as well as healthcare workers, the long-term ramifications that this delay will have on the field of urologic oncology is unknown. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to plan for and implement new strategies to advance our understanding of unmet areas of need in urologic oncology. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the suspension, termination or alteration of thousands of clinical trials as the health emergency escalated globally. Whilst the rapid suspension of certain clinical trials was necessary to ensure the safety of high-risk or vulnerable trial participants as well as healthcare workers, the long-term ramifications that this delay will have on the field of urologic oncology is unknown. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to plan for and implement new strategies to advance our understanding of unmet areas of need in urologic oncology. Keywords COVID-19 · Urologic oncology · Clinical trial New therapeutic options in urological oncology are highly sought after with many randomised control trials (RCT) established to address areas of unmet need in recurrent and metastatic prostate cancer, non-muscle invasive and metastatic bladder cancers and rare urological malignancies such as penile cancer. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to 10,174 clinical trials registered with the US government site ClinicalTrials.gov being suspended, terminated, withdrawn or moved to ‘not recruiting’ status in March and April 2020 as the health emergency escalated globally [1]. Whilst the rapid suspension of certain clinical trials was necessary to ensure the safety of high-risk or vulnerable trial * Jiasian Teh [email protected] 1
Division of Cancer Surgery, Peter MacCallum Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2
Department of Surgery, Austin Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
3
Department of Surgery, Department of Urology, University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
4
EJ Whitten Prostate Cancer Research Centre at Epworth Healthcare, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
participants and preserve resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are ethical considerations to delaying access to potentially successful treatments. While the potential long-term ramifications of the postponement of clinical trials may have is unknown, it may be far-reaching in terms of patient outcomes, data interpretation and drug development, with the full impact yet be realised
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