Dr. Lara is a clinician-scientist whose principal research interests are in the field of developmental therapeutics, particularly in genitourinary and thoracic malignancies, as well as in cancer biomarker development. He has a national and international reputation in clinical-translational research, and has chaired or co-chaired many cancer clinical trials from phase I to III. He directs an active clinical practice in genitourinary and thoracic malignancies and is a strong advocate for cancer clinical trials. (From http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/providerbio/search/536)
key insights
There are a variety of academic papers published on the topic of increasing accrual. Competitors may be inspired or understand the constraints of their ideas by exploring the research that has already been conducted.
Dr. Lara conducted a study examining the impact of mass media campaigns for clinical trials that target patients. His study found that they increased patients' willingness to participate, but that increased willingness did not translate into increased accrual. This likely was due to unchanged promotion of clinical trials from physicians.
To increase accrual in a long-term and meaningful way, multiple angles of the accrual problem must be addressed. He found that only focusing on patient education made no impact to accrual rates; they also needed to address physicians.
Existing clinical trial infrastructure also offers an opportunity for improvement that could increase accrual.
