title: Cancer clinical research in Latin America: current situation and opportunities. Expert opinion from the first ESMO workshop on clinical trials, Lima, 2015.
abstract: Latin America and the Caribbean have not yet developed strong clinical cancer research programmes. In order to improve this situation two international cancer organisations, the Latin American Society of Clinical Oncology (SLACOM) and the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) worked closely with the Peruvian Cooperative Oncology Group (GECOPERU) and organised a clinical cancer research workshop held in Lima, Peru, in October 2015. Many oncologists from different Latin American countries participated in this gathering. The opportunities for and strengths of clinical oncology research in Latin American and Caribbean countries were identified as the widespread use of the Spanish language, the high cancer burden, growing access to information, improving patient education, access to new drugs for research centres, regional networks and human resources. However, there are still many weaknesses and problems including the long timeline for regulatory approval, lack of economic investment, lack of training and lack of personnel participating in clinical research, lack of cancer registries, insufficient technology and insufficient supplies for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, few cancer specialists, low general levels of education and the negative attitude of government authorities towards clinical research.
authors.affiliation: Phase I-Early Clinical Trials Unit , Antwerp University Hospital and Center for Oncological Research (CORE), Antwerp University , Edegem , Belgium.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rolfo
authors.affiliation: Medical Oncology Department , Instituto Oncológico Fundación Arturo López Pérez , Santiago , Chile.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Caglevic
authors.affiliation: Grupo de Estudios Clinicos Oncologicos Peruano (GECOPERU) , Lima , Peru.
authors.forename: Denisse
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bretel
authors.affiliation: Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics, Division of Cancer Medicine , The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center , Houston, Texas , USA.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Thoracic Oncology Program, Memorial Cancer Institute, Memorial Health Care System , Pembroke Pines, Florida , USA.
authors.forename: Luis E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Raez
authors.affiliation: Clinical and Translational Oncology Group , Institute of Oncology, Clínica del Country , Bogota , Colombia.
authors.forename: Andres F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Cardona
authors.affiliation: Medical Oncology at Denver Health Care Medical Center and the University of Colorado Denver , Denver, Colorado , USA.
authors.forename: Ana B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Oton
authors.affiliation: Division of Medicine , National Cancer Institute (INEN) and Oncosalud , Lima , Peru.
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.affiliation: Biostatistics Laboratory , School of Health Sciences, University of Athens and Frontier Science Foundation -Hellas , Athens , Greece.
authors.forename: Urania
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Dafni
authors.affiliation: AUNA Health System and Oncosalud , Lima , Peru.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vallejos
authors.affiliation: Clinical Division of Oncology and Department of Medicine I , Medical University Vienna , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zielinski
keywords: Clinical trials; Drug development; Latin America