Loss to follow-up of minorities, adolescents, and young adults on clinical trials: A report from the Children’s Oncology Group

Puthenpura V, Ji L, Xu X, Roth ME, Freyer DR, Frazier AL, Marks AM, Pashankar FD. Loss to follow-up of minorities, adolescents, and young adults on clinical trials: A report from the Children’s Oncology Group. Cancer. 2023 May 15;129(10):1547-1556. doi: 10.1002/cncr.34701. Epub 2023 Feb 22. PubMed PMID: 36813754; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10357561.

The increasing number of childhood cancer survivors necessitates continued follow-up to monitor for long-term complications. Inequities in loss to follow-up for patients enrolled on pediatric clinical trials have not been well studied. This was a retrospective study of 21,084 patients residing in the United States enrolled on phase 2/3 and phase 3 Children’s Oncology Group (COG) trials between January 1, 2000 and March 31, 2021. Rates of loss to follow-up to COG were evaluated using log-rank tests and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models with adjusted hazard ratios (HRs). Demographic characteristics included age at enrollment, race, ethnicity, and zip code level socioeconomic data.