Study Finds Minorities Are Treated Similarly to Whites in Phase 1 Clinical Trials

Black Americans have a major concern about clinical trials: fear of mistreatment. This fear stems from a long history of medical abuses in the United States. To understand this concern better, a recent analysis published in JAMA Network Open investigated whether people from minority backgrounds benefitted equally from a special type of cancer treatment test. These tests, called phase 1 trials, involve new drugs not yet widely available. Historically, minorities haven’t participated much in cancer trials. This is partly due to the documented history of unfair treatment in medical research, even though these trials offer access to the latest treatments. Researchers at Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center in Bronx, New York wanted to see if minorities were treated differently in trials compared to white patients. They studied the records of over 700 patients who participated in phase 1 trials from 1999 to 2016. The patients came from various racial and ethnic backgrounds, including Hispanic, Black, and White. The researchers examined how well patients responded to the treatments, how long they lived, and any side effects they experienced. They found that regardless of a person’s race or ethnicity, the benefits and risks of being in a phase 1 trial were similar. This...