Unique perception of clinical trials by Korean cancer patients

BMC Cancer

Research Article

Seonwoo Kim¹  Lee Chun Park²  Wonjin Chang³  Su Jin Lee³  Sylvia Park³  Jung Yong Hong³  Joon Oh Park³  Se Hoon Park³  Young Suk Park³  Jeeyun Lee³  Ho Yeong Lim³  Moon Ki Choi³  Won Ki Kang³  Young Saing Kim³  Chi Hoon Maeng³ 

[1] Biostatistics team, Samsung Biomedical Research Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea;Department of Internal Medicine, Kosin University Gospel Hospital, Busan, South Korea;Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 50 Irwon-dong Gangnam-gu, 135-710, Seoul, South Korea;

关键词: Cancer clinical trial;    Survey;    Awareness and willingness to participate;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-12-594

 received in 2012-07-29, accepted in 2012-11-26,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn the past few years, the number of clinical trials has increased rapidly in East Asia, especially for gastric and hepatobiliary cancer that are prevalent in Asian populations. However, the actual degree of understanding or perceptions of clinical trials by cancer patients in East Asian countries have seldom been studied.MethodsBetween July 1st and November 30th of 2011, we conducted a prospective study to survey cancer patients regarding their awareness of, and willingness to participate in, a clinical trial. Patients with gastrointestinal/hepatobiliary cancer who visited the Hematology-Oncology outpatient clinic at Samsung Medical Center (SMC) were enrolled. A total of 21 questions were asked including four questions which used the Visual analogue scale (VAS) score.ResultsIn this survey study, 1,000 patients were asked to participate and 675 patients consented to participate (67.5%). The awareness of clinical trials was substantially higher in patients who had a higher level of education (p<0.001), were married (p=0.004), and had a higher economic status (p=0.001). However, the willingness to participate in a clinical trial was not affected by the level of education or economic status of patients. The most influential factors for patient willingness to participate were a physician recommendation (n=181, 26.8%), limited treatment options (n=178, 26.4%), and expectations of effectiveness of new anti-cancer drugs (n=142, 21.0%). Patients with previous experience in clinical trials had a greater willingness to participate in clinical trials compared to patients without previous experience (p<0.001).ConclusionsThis large patient cohort survey study showed that Korean cancer patients are more aware of clinical trials, but awareness did not translate into willingness to participate.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Lee et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012