Only 3% of cancer patients go on clinical trials nationally, which is a huge problem…. We’re not going to cure these diseases if we’re only putting 3% of our patients on trials.

— Steven Piantadosi, MD, PhD

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In an interview with The ASCO Post, Steven Piantadosi, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, expressed enthusiasm for the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network (ORIEN) network of data-sharing.

“With data from 50,000 patients per year, the network will obviously have an impact on precision medicine in oncology, especially glioblastoma,” said Dr. Piantadosi. “It’s a very intractable disease, but to see [ORIEN] approaching the problem differently offers a little bit of promise.”

In spite of these efforts, however, Dr. Piantadosi also emphasized the need for greater patient participation in clinical trials.

“Only 3% of cancer patients go on clinical trials nationally, which is a huge problem. We need more and more trials because our diseases are getting chopped up into smaller pieces with individualized therapies. We’re not going to cure these diseases if we’re only putting 3% of our patients on trials,” Dr. Piantadosi concluded. ■

Disclosure: Dr. Piantadosi reported no potential conflicts of interest.