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Communication Science in Action:
Clinical Trials

List to Susan!

Hello, I'm Susan McMullen from the Office of the Clinical Director of the NCI's Center for Cancer Research. My job is to increase the awareness of and accrual to the clinical trials being done by the NCI at the Clinical Center on the NIH campus.

Presently our primary outreach is done via electronic newsletters, web campaigns, and the strategic placement of links to our recruitment website.

Despite the increased use of the internet by the general public, I continue to believe that health care providers are critical to the successful recruitment of patients into cancer clinical trials. It is important to support oncologists in their role as facilitators of informed decisions among cancer patients. Research supported by the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch is helping NCI explore innovative ways of supporting oncologists in this important role.

I also believe there is much work to be done in the area of public education. While much of the effort is aimed at patients and their families, I believe that an important time to reach out to people is before they are sick. Too often we start to educate people and/or their family members after they have received devastating news, when their ability to absorb new information is at its lowest. If people have already started thinking about clinical research in terms of personal and societal value while they are well, I believe that they will be much more likely to consider clinical trials as an option when faced with health care decisions.

With so many people turning to the internet for information, we are very interested in learning about some of the ways that other centers are using new technology to reach out to the public.

Presently, Moffitt and the Cancer Center at Albany are exploring the role of patient-doctor communication and the involvement of family members as they relate to participation in clinical trials.

The Karmanos Cancer Institute is developing new strategies to increase clinical trial participation, especially among the African American population. They are producing and testing the effectiveness of a video designed to overcome patients' concerns related to the potential for human subjects' rights abuse and an over all lack of understanding of clinical trials.

History has shown that despite costly efforts on the part of many, we have not increased our enrollment percentages among the adult cancer patient populations. Certainly we know that there is no one single solution. But I do believe in the need for a cooperative effort between cancer centers and trial sponsors. Anything that increases general awareness and the willingness of the public to participate in clinical research can only help all of us. Otherwise, we may find ourselves continuing to ask the same questions a decade from now.

• Highlights from the Clinical Trial Portfolio
• eHealth at NCI