Richard Lee, MD, PhD, Clinical Co-Director of The Claire and John Bertucci Center for Genitourinary Cancers at Mass General Cancer Center
Dr. Richard Lee addressed the increased prostate cancer mortality among African American men. While mentioning the many new treatment options for prostate cancer since 2004, Dr. Lee stated that it’s unacceptable that the prostate cancer death rate among Black men remains twice as high as among White men. Black patients make up anywhere from 4-6% of clinical trial participants despite making up 12.1% of the US population.
He emphasized the importance of inclusivity and outlined several clinical trials in which Black patients had either better survival rates, similar survival rates to White patients, or lower risk of mortality. To provide the potential clinical trial benefits to Black patients, investigators should put patients at the center of trial design, insist on diversity and inclusion, address barriers to inclusion, focus on translating documents into other languages, and improve diversity in their workplace.
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