In cancer trials, minorities face extra hurdles

New York Times

23 December 2016 - As immunotherapy research takes off, the patients getting the treatment have been overwhelmingly white. Researchers know this and say they are trying to correct it.

Like a man on a flying trapeze, K.T. Jones has leapt from one medical study to another during his 15-year struggle with cancer, and he has no doubt that the experimental treatments he has received have saved his life.

Mr. Jones, 45, has an aggressive type of Hodgkin’s lymphoma that resists the usual therapies. At the start of his most recent clinical trial, his life expectancy was measured in months. That was more than three years ago. He received a drug that helped his immune system fight cancer — a type of immunotherapy, the hottest area in cancer research and treatment.

“I’ve been over 12 months now with no treatment at all,” he said. “I walk half-marathons.”

Read New York Times article

Michael Wonder

Posted by:

Michael Wonder

Posted in:

Cancer , Medicine , Market access