title: Disparities in subgroup populations enrolled in lung cancer trials.
abstract: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. All drugs available for the treatment of lung cancer reached the market after reporting positive results from pivotal clinical studies. However, in these trials not all patient subgroups are adequately represented, with some discrepancies reported in patients' accrual especially concerning age, gender and ethnicity. Hence, a new drug entering the market for the treatment of all patients may have been investigated only in certain patient subgroups, while the reported results have been generalized for the therapy of all patients. The impact of certain characteristics such as gender, ethnicity and age of patients enrolled in randomized trials on the final results has been examined and discussed in this article.
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Oncology, SG Moscati Hospital, Contrada Amoretta, 8 83100, Avellino, Italy. arossi_it@yahoo.it
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Palazzolo
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Galetta
mesh_terms: D005006:Ethnicity; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D018579:Patient Selection; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic