title: Clinical trial enrollment among adolescents with cancer: supplement overview.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Survival rates for children with cancer have significantly increased over the past 35 years. However, adolescents with cancer aged 15 to 19 years have had less progress in survival prolongation compared with younger children, which may be due to lower clinical trial enrollment among adolescents with cancer. To help address this issue, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a series of webinars to identify salient issues and measures to address this problem. This supplement is intended to raise awareness about the unique challenges of clinical trial enrollment among adolescents with cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  The CDC convened a workgroup of researchers and health care providers in the field of adolescent and young adult oncology and cancer survivorship to examine the barriers and challenges limiting the participation of adolescents in clinical trials and to define ways to improve on these concerns.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The workgroup identified 3 distinct issues affecting clinical trial enrollment among adolescents with cancer: (1) many adolescents with cancer are not referred to institutions where clinical trials are offered, (2) there are limited numbers of clinical trials for adolescents with cancer, and (3) psychosocial barriers impede adolescents with cancer from enrolling in clinical trials.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Adolescents with cancer have the smallest proportion and least number of patients enrolled in clinical trials in pediatric oncology. Successfully addressing this challenge requires improving referral to existing clinical trials, addressing regulatory barriers to clinical trial enrollment, increasing the number of clinical trials for adolescents, and addressing unique psychosocial barriers to clinical trial enrollment.
authors.affiliation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia; etai@cdc.gov.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tai
authors.affiliation: Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York; and.
authors.forename: Lynda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Beaupin
authors.affiliation: St Charles Health System, Quality Department, Bend, Oregon.
authors.forename: Archie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bleyer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D004493:Education / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy*; D018579:Patient Selection; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends
keywords: adolescent; clinical trial; enrollment