Philadelphia Inquirer: More Black patients are participating in clinical trials for cancer treatment at Penn thanks to this effort

From The Philadelphia Inquirer: 

Health-care professionals have been wrestling with various inequities in their field, with varying results.

One success story is a five-year effort by the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania to enroll more Black patients with cancer in clinical trials. The trials give more Black patients access to the latest cancer treatments — and promise wider benefits, too.

In 2014, Black residents comprised 19% of the 12-county area around and including Philadelphia. And 16.5% of cancer patients were Black. Yet at Abramson, only 12.2% of patients in cancer treatment trials were Black. After the five-year effort, the number of Black patients enrolled in the trials nearly doubled – to 20.9%.

The findings were published in an abstract presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in June. The authors included Carmen Guerra, a physician, professor and the cancer center’s associate director for diversity and outreach, plus Armenta Washington, a senior research coordinator. Read the full story in The Philadelphia Inquirer.