Evaluating recruitment success in skin cancer clinical trials

Summary: Abstract Body: Successful recruitment in clinical trials is important to avoid delays, extra costs, and trial termination. While demographics and trail design are known to influence recruitment, their impact on skin cancer trials remains unexplored. This study addresses this gap by examining patterns in skin cancer trials with successful recruitment. Interventional skin cancer trials from ClinicalTrial.gov with completed enrollment data were queried and their estimated enrollment data was scraped. Trials were categorized by sex, age group, phase, presence of a collaborator, and intervention used. Recruitment success was analyzed as a percentage of actual to estimated recruitment. Differences between subgroup recruitment success were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test. The search yielded 2,522 completed skin cancer trials with estimated enrollment recorded. No significant differences were observed in recruitment success between sex and intervention subgroups. Phase 3 recruitment success was lower than phases 1, 2, and 4 (respective median difference: 33.0, 26.8, 8.8; p<0.05). “Older Adults”, “Children and Adults”, “Adults and Older Adults” achieved higher recruitment success compared to “Adults” (respective median difference: 84.6, 27.2, 16.0; p<0.05) and “Children and Adults and Older Adults” (respective median difference: 84.6, 27.2, 16.0; p<0.05). Trials with a collaborator also yielded higher recruitment success (median difference: 16.3; p<0.05). These results suggest that recruitment in skin cancer trials is more successful when targeting specific age groups and including collaborators. Phase 3 trials represent a challenge for recruitment while sex and the kind of intervention do not play a significant role. Dany Alkurdi¹, Deepesh Agarwal², Omar Alani¹, Lara S. Shqair¹, Curtis Tam¹, Angela Kim², Valentina Yate², Vyshnavi Donthabhaktuni², Andy Ying², Ezdean Alkurdi³, Dev Patel¹, Shiven Sharma¹, Zachary Schwager² 1. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States. 2. Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Burlington, MA, United States. 3. University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, MA, United States. Clinical Research: Interventional Research