Health stories in the news–Aug. 4th
Lack of patients for clinical trials slows cancer research
New York Times reporter Gina Kolata leads her story about how the lack of patients willing to participate in studies is hobbling cancer research with a quote from Dr. Scott Ramsey of Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Dr. Ramsay, a cancer researcher and health economist at the Seattle center, tells how he brought a White House conference to a halt last year when he said that biggest barrier to progress against cancer was the fact that just 3 percent of cancer patients participate in cancer treatment studies.
Kolata writes:
“To me it was obvious,” Dr. Ramsey said. “We can’t improve survival unless we test new treatments against established ones.”
The room fell silent.
“It was one of those embarrassing moments,” said Dr. Ramsey, an associate professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. He had brought up the subject he said no one wanted to touch.
In the article, Kolata details the scope of the problem and explores the reasons:
There are more than 6,500 cancer clinical trials seeking adult patients, according to clinicaltrials.gov, a trials registry. But many will be abandoned along the way. More than one trial in five sponsored by the National Cancer Institute failed to enroll a single subject, and only half reached the minimum needed for a meaningful result, Dr. Ramsey and his colleague John Scoggins reported in a recent review in The Oncologist.
To learn more:
- Read Kolata’s article: Lack of Study Volunteers Hobbles Cancer Fight.
Seattle Times profiles Fred Hutchinson’s outgoing director
Seattle Times science reporter Sandi Doughton profiles Lee Hartwell, the outgoing director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Many considered Hartwell an odd choice when he was picked in 1997, Doughton writes: all the previous directors had been medical doctors, while Hartwell was a bench scientist who studied yeast (research that, by the way, won Hartwell the Nobel Prize).
But under his leadership, Doughton notes, the center’s “budget has more than doubled and the staff has grown by 500, to 2,600 . . . (and today the center) generally is acknowledged as the nation’s premier basic cancer-research institution.”
Hartwell will leave in June of next year.
To learn more:
- Read Doughton’s profile: Hutch Leader Guided Center’s Ride to Top.
Category: Cancer, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Uncategorized, University of Washington
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