ArticleBMJ open2013
Barriers to recruitment for surgical trials in head and neck oncology: a survey of trial investigators.
Article in BMJ open, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Patch augmentation surgery for rotator cuff repair: the PARCS mixed-methods feasibility study.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2021Pooled it
- Nationwide randomised trial evaluating elective neck dissection for early stage oral cancer (SEND study) with meta-analysis and concurrent real-world cohort.British journal of cancer · 2019Pooled it
- Posterior cervical foraminotomy versus anterior cervical discectomy for Cervical Brachialgia: the FORVAD RCT.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2023Trial
- Patient characteristics and refusal to participate in a head and neck cancer intervention trial: experience of two tertiary UK head and neck cancer centres.Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England · 2022Trial
- Open urethroplasty versus endoscopic urethrotomy for recurrent urethral stricture in men: the OPEN RCT.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2020Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Equipoise across the patient population: optimising recruitment to a randomised controlled trial.Trials · 2017Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Increasing Diversity in Head and Neck Cancer Clinical Trials.Current treatment options in oncology · 2026Review
- Article
- Article
- Ethical Considerations and Equipoise in Cancer Surgery.Indian journal of surgical oncology · 2024Review
- Article
- The challenge of equipoise: qualitative interviews exploring the views of health professionals and women with multiple ipsilateral breast cancer on recruitment to a surgical randomised controlled feasibility trial.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2022Article
- Optimising recruitment to the HAND-1 RCT feasibility study: integration of the QuinteT Recruitment Intervention (QRI).Pilot and feasibility studies · 2020Article
- Recruitment and retention of participants in UK surgical trials: survey of key issues reported by trial staff.BJS open · 2020Article
- A real-time electronic symptom monitoring system for patients after discharge following surgery: a pilot study in cancer-related surgery.BMC cancer · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesMany randomised trials in surgery suffer from recruitment rates that lag behind projected targets. We aim to identify perceived barriers to recruitment among these pioneering trials in the field of head and neck cancer surgery.
designRecruiting centres to all three trials (Selective Elective Neck Dissection (SEND), Positron Emission Tomography (PET)-Neck and Hyperbaric Oxygen in the Prevention of Osteoradionecrosis (HOPON)) were contacted by email by the chief investigators. Responders were asked to complete a web-based survey in order to identify the barriers to recruitment in their centre and grade each by severity.
settingSecondary care: 44 head and neck oncology regional referral centres.
participantsAnalysis was based on 85 responses evenly distributed between the three trials.
resultsThe most commonly identified perceived barriers to recruitment (more than 50% of responders identified the item as a barrier in all the three trials) in the order of frequency were: patients consent refusal because of expressed treatment preference, patients consent refusal owing to aversion to randomisation, excess complexity/amount of information provided to patients and lack of time in clinic to accommodate research. The most severely rated of these problems was consent refusal because of the expressed treatment preference and lack of time in the clinic.
conclusionsOur findings confirm others' work in surgery that the most significant barrier to trial recruitment in head and neck cancer surgery is the patient's preference for one arm of the trial. It may be that additional training for those taking consent may be helpful in this regard. It is also important to adequately resource busy surgical clinics to support clinical trial recruitment.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.