Immunotherapy Trials at Children's National Health System Offer Greater Access for Patients of Diverse Backgrounds

Background Cellular therapy offers an innovative, personalized alternative to traditional therapeutics aimed to treat cancer and viral infections. Often offered in experimental clinical trials, in 2016 a New York Times article argued that immunotherapy is reserved primarily for white patients due to barriers to access. Two prominent immunotherapy trials cited in the article reported 92% and 88% enrollment of white patients, while minority patients represented 9% and 10% of enrollment, respectively. Purpose To examine the races, ethnicity, and gender of patients enrolled in clinical cell therapy trials at Children's National, Washington DC to determine if the enrollment is representative of the current US population. Methods Demographic data was analyzed from databases obtained from IRB-approved cell therapy clinical trials initiated at our Institution. Results/Conclusions Of the patients (between ages of 1 and 64) enrolled into cell therapy clinical trials, 56% identified racially as white (n=95), while 20% identified as black (n=33), 9% as Asian (n=9), 19% as “other” (n=20), and 3% as “unknown” (n=5). Among the patients who reported race, 18% identified ethnically as Hispanic (n=31). By sex, 50% were male (n=85) and 50% were female (n=84). In the 2015 US census, 77% of participants identified racially as white, 13.3% as black, and 5.6% as Asian. As per the census, 17% of those surveyed identified ethnically as Hispanic. This stands in contrast to 2 published adult centered cell therapy studies mentioned in the New York Times in which 92% and 88% of patients were identified as white and minorities only constituted