Disparities along the glioblastoma clinical trials landscape

We read with interest the recent work by Vanderbeek et al1 regarding the current clinical trials landscape for glioblastoma (GBM) patients. An unexplored dimension of their analysis centers on disparities and demographic discrepancies between clinical trial participants and the broader GBM population. We therefore examined clinical trials with published results as highlighted by the authors, totaling 51 trials.1 While most of these trials reported details regarding patient age (48/51, 94%) and gender (47/51, 92%), only 14 trials (27%) provided information regarding ethnicity and/or race in either peer-reviewed publications or ClinicalTrials.gov. The rate of reporting ethnicity/race was particularly low among phase I/II studies (9/43, 21%) compared with phase III trials (5/8, 63%, chi-squared test P = 0.02)