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  • Ledesma Vicioso, Nahomy; Lin, Diana; Gomez, Daniel R; Yang, Jonathan T; Lee, Nancy Y; Rimner, Andreas; Yamada, Yoshiya; Zelefsky, Michael J; Kalman, Noah S; Rutter, Charles E; Kotecha, Rupesh R; Mehta, Minesh P; Panoff, Joseph E; Chuong, Michael D; Salner, Andrew L; Ostroff, Jamie S; Diamond, Lisa C; Mathis, Noah J; Cahlon, Oren; Pfister, David G; Zhang, Zhigang; Chino, Fumiko; Tsai, Jillian; Gillespie, Erin F

    JCO oncology practice, 05/2022, Volume: 18, Issue: 5
    Journal Article

    Community-academic partnerships have the potential to improve access to clinical trials for under-represented minority patients who more often receive cancer treatment in community settings. In 2017, the Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center began opening investigator-initiated clinical trials in radiation oncology in targeted community-based partner sites with a high potential to improve diverse population accrual. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a set of implementation strategies for increasing overall community-based enrollment and the resulting proportional enrollment of Hispanic patients on trials on the basis of availability in community-based partner sites. An interrupted time series analysis evaluating implementation strategies was conducted from April 2018 to September 2021. Descriptive analysis ofHispanic enrollment on investigator-initiated randomized therapeutic radiation trials open at community-based sites was compared with those open only at themain academic center. Overall, 84 patients were enrolled in clinical trials in the MSK Alliance, of which 48 (56%) identified as Hispanic. The quarterly patient enrollment pre- vs postimplementation increased from 1.39 (95% CI, -3.67 to 6.46) to 9.42 (95% CI, 2.05 to 16.78; P5 .017). In the investigator-initiated randomized therapeutic radiation trials open in the MSK Alliance, Hispanic representation was 11.5% and 35.9% in twometastatic trials and 14.2% in a proton versus photon trial. Inmatched trials open only at the main academic center, Hispanic representation was 5.6%, 6.0%, and 4.0%, respectively. A combination of practice-level and physician-level strategies implemented at community-based partner sites was associated with increased clinical trial enrollment, which translated to improved Hispanic representation. This supports the role Q:2 of strategic community-academic partnerships in addressing disparities in clinical trial enrollment.