Dr. Keith Crawford, PHEN’s Director of Clinical Trials and Patient Education, presented on The Importance of Clinical Trial Participation at the Charlotte Prostate Cancer Community Rally educational program. He introduced the audience to the PHENTrials.com portal and the “Find-Your-Trial” tool. He also discussed the peer-reviewed paper that PHEN published in the AUA Urology Practice, which uncovered the major reason Black men do not participate in prostate cancer research trials. The research uncovered that not enough doctors are telling Black men with prostate cancer about clinical trials while recruitment from researchers remains low.
Dr. Crawford discussed an immunotherapy clinical trial that took seven years to complete. However, the trial did not have enough Black men participating. As such, it took an additional seven years to determine whether the genetics and physiological of Black men act differently with this immunotherapy drug. The results found that the life expectancy of a person with African ancestry when treated with this immunotherapy drug was nearly twice as long as someone of European ancestry.
A video of prostate cancer survivor Art Cain was also shared in which audience members learned about his prostate cancer journey and clinical trial participation. Mr. Cain underwent a biopsy, a bone scan, and a CT scan. He underwent treatment with radium seeds and external beam radiation. After another round of bone and CT scans, his cancer did not metastasize, but his PSA level continued to rise.
Yet, after additional testing, he was found to have cancer in his bones. He received hormone therapies including Lupron and the bone-strengthening agent Xgeva. While his PSA level initially declined, it began rising again after a short period. Art Cain’s support group told him about Duke Cancer Center’s Dr. Daniel George who was conducting a clinical trial. After meeting with Dr. George, he joined the PANTHER clinical trial, which helped save his life.
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