More Is Needed to Connect Clinicians, Patients to Clinical Trials

More needs to be done to facilitate a connection between oncology nurse navigators and clinical resources to improve enrollment and diversify the patient population involved in research, explained Sue Friedman.

In an interview with CURE®, Friedman, who is the executive director of FORCE (Facing Hereditary Cancer Empowered) discussed a needs assessment conducted by FORCE and supported by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which highlighted barriers for referrals to supportive care services and clinical trials for young patients with breast cancer.

READ MORE: ‘Knowledge is Power’: Advocating for More Representation in Cancer-Related Clinical Trials

Now, Friedman explained, FORCE will work to facilitate that collaboration to improve clinical trial enrollment and break down barriers to supportive care, such as fertility preservation.

Transcript

Well, there were several big takeaways from our needs assessment, and this poster was really just one component of it, but one was that there was more that we could do as an organization to facilitate connecting oncology nurse navigators with resources around clinical research studies to help encourage them to let patients know more about clinical research studies in order to improve enrollment and diverse involvement in clinical research.

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