The Importance of Diversity in Breast Cancer Clinical Trials
Dr. Lola Fayanju is the Helen O. Dickens Presidential Associate Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also chief of breast surgery at Penn Medicine, as well as surgical director of the Rena Rowan Breast Center. Her research focuses on health disparities, aggressive breast cancer variants, and improving value in oncology. Studies show that overall participation in cancer clinical trials is low, and participation by people of color is even lower. This is thought to be part of the reason that minority women — especially Black women — have worse breast cancer outcomes than white women. One strategy to help reduce disparities in breast cancer outcomes is to make clinical trials more diverse. Listen to the podcast to hear Dr. Fayanju explain: why diversity in clinical trials is important some of the barriers that keep people of color from enrolling in clinical trials and how they can be overcome how she talks to all her patients about clinical trials Running time: 31:11