jnci.oxfordjournals.org JNCI | Article 1 DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djq549 Published by Oxford University Press 2011.

Cancer clinical trials are research studies designed to determine the safety and efficacy of new approaches to preventing, diag-nosing, and treating cancer. They are critical to the discovery of new and improved therapies for cancer patients. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), more than 8000 clinical trials are accepting participants (1). However, it has been estimated that only 2%–4 % of newly diagnosed adult cancer patients participate in clinical trials (2,3). Barriers to patient participation in clinical trials include the additional medical appointments and procedures required by many trial protocols and the concomitant travel time and costs (4). Many patients are also uncertain about or suspicious of medical research (5). Furthermore, the patient’s physicians may pose a barrier to participation: Two studies (2,6) have noted that the majority of eligible cancer patients are not enrolled in clinical trials because their physicians decided to not offer trials to them