Single-Institution Experience in Clinical Trials During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain: Not So Bad After All?

The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain during March-April 2020 has been unbalanced throughout the different regions of the country. The alarm status defined by the government on March 14, and still in place at the time of this writing, has transformed the country in different perspectives, including care of patients with cancer.1 In many centers, clinical trial activity was suspended, because it was not considered a priority under the health care challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic.2 Nevertheless, experimental therapy is the only and/or best therapeutic option for many patients with cancer.

We performed a retrospective study to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown in the activity of our clinical trials unit. The analysis was restricted to hematology and oncology clinical trials. We analyzed two time periods: March 2, 2020, to April 19, 2020, and a comparable timeframe in 2019 (March 11, 2019, to April 28, 2019). Variables analyzed were number of patient visits, number of active patients, inclusion of new patients, and COVID-19 infection incidence.

CITA DEL ARTÍCULO  JCO Glob Oncol . 2020 Jun;6:904-905.  doi: 10.1200/GO.20.00247