ArticleJCO oncology practice2025
State of Geographic Access to Cancer Treatment Trials in the United States: Are Studies Located Where Patients Live?
Article in JCO oncology practice, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Geographic access to triple negative breast cancer clinical trials: are trials located near patients?Breast cancer research and treatment · 2026Article
- Advancing clinical trials for rare renal cell carcinoma subtypes: Consensus statements from the International Kidney Cancer Symposium North America 2025 think tank.Urologic oncology · 2026Article
- Regional Variation in Bladder Cancer Clinical Trial Availability in the US.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- AI-based augmentation of oncology clinical trials.Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2026Review
- Inequities in enrollment across clinical trial phases and the need for a Spanish perspective.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2026Review
- Patient Perspectives on Approval Speed vs Evidentiary Certainty in US Cancer Drug Approvals.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Building HOPE: operationalizing hybrid decentralized oncology clinical trials with community providers beyond traditional healthcare system networks.The oncologist · 2026Article
- Enhancing graduate research capacity in an IDeA state: 5-yr outcomes of the USD G-RISE program.Advances in physiology education · 2026Article
- Matching Patients With Cell Surface-Targeted Clinical Trials Using Large Language Models.JCO precision oncology · 2026Article
- Success rates of American clinical oncology trials by geographic factors.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The role of regional and practice trial sites in nonrepresentative randomized cancer trial enrollment.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2025Article
- Trends in initial primary treatment approach and biomarker testing across social determinants of health in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.Future oncology (London, England) · 2025Article
- Advancing Precision Medicine in PDAC: An Ethical Scoping Review and Call to Action for IHC Implementation.Cancers · 2025Review
- Development of clinical research networks in rural America: Our experience from the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines-1 trialau.Journal of clinical and translational science · 2025Article
- Assessing populations with access to National Cancer Institute-funded sites using local distance-based service areas.Journal of clinical and translational science · 2025Article
- Community engagement strategies improve recruitment and enrollment in a pragmatic clinical trial.Journal of clinical and translational science · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeIn this study, we describe the geographic distribution of US cancer treatment trials to identify disparities and opportunities for targeted improvements in access to research for people with cancer.
methodsUS-based phase I-III cancer treatment trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov were tabulated for the years they were open to enrollment (2017-2022), overall and by county, and supplemented with data from the US Census Bureau, National Cancer Institute, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and US Department of Agriculture. We evaluated geographic differences in trial availability. We assessed 5-year trends in trials per capita and mapped 1-hour drive time areas around sites.
resultsA total of 6,710 trials were open to enrollment in 2022 across 1,836 sites. Trials increased by 4%, whereas sites decreased by 3% annually per capita from 2017. Seventy percent of US counties had no reported active trials in 2022 (2,211/3,143), representing 19% of people age ≥55 years. Eighty-six percent of nonmetropolitan counties had no trials versus 44% of metropolitan counties. Trial availability varied by county-level cancer mortality and social vulnerability (an index derived from demographic and socioeconomic data from the US Census). Eighteen percent of counties without trials had oncologist care sites (n = 618). Notably, 26% of people age ≥55 years lived beyond an hour drive of a site with ≥100 trials.
conclusionMost US counties have limited to no trial offerings, a disparity magnified in counties that are nonmetropolitan, with high social vulnerability, and with high cancer mortality. Effort to facilitate diverse site participation is needed to promote equitable access to trials and to ensure patients participating in trials match the characteristics of patients who will receive interventions once approved. Counties with oncology care sites but no trials provide potential expansion areas.
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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.