Patient recruitment into clinical studies of solid malignancies during the COVID-19 pandemic in a tertiary cancer center

Abstract

Background and purpose
To analyze clinical trial activities and patient recruitment numbers into prospective clinical studies for solid malignancies during the COVID-19 pandemic in a tertiary cancer center.

Materials and methods
Patient recruitment numbers in prospective clinical studies of solid malignancies were retrospectively analyzed for the years 2019 – 2021 at the Comprehensive Cancer Center Zurich (CCCZ). Changes in recruitment numbers were tested for association with organ-specific subunits, as well as organizational and treatment-related trial characteristics. To assess differences between categorical variables, Chi-squared test was used. For uni- and multivariate analysis, Cox proportional hazards were calculated.

Results
In 2019, there were a total of 107 studies (registry trials, clinical phase I-III trials, and translational studies) recruiting 304 patients at the CCCZ. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, there were 120 and 125 active trials with a total recruitment of 355 and 666 patients, respectively. No significant differences between the subunits and study characteristics in changes of patient recruitment in clinical phase I-III trials were identified when the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (2019) was compared to the first year of the pandemic (2020) and to 2020-2021.

Conclusions
Despite healthcare systems around the world have experienced significant disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, data from our tertiary cancer center showed that clinical trial activities were maintained at a high level during the pandemic.