International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics
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Int. J. Radiat. Oncol. Biol. Phys. · Nov 2012
ReviewThe clinical development of molecularly targeted agents in combination with radiation therapy: a pharmaceutical perspective.
This paper explores historical and current roles of pharmaceutical industry sponsorship of clinical trials testing radiation therapy combinations with molecularly targeted agents and attempts to identify potential solutions to expediting further combination studies. An analysis of clinical trials involving a combination of radiation therapy and novel cancer therapies was performed. Ongoing and completed trials were identified by searching the clinicaltrials.gov Web site, in the first instance, with published trials of drugs of interest identified through American Society of Clinical Oncology, European CanCer Organisation/European Society for Medical Oncology, American Society for Radiation Oncology/European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, and PubMed databases and then cross-correlated with clinicaltrials.gov protocols. ⋯ In phase III studies, the most common (58%) primary endpoint was overall survival. Collectively, this analysis suggests that such trials are not given priority by pharmaceutical companies. The potential reasons for this and some challenges and possible solutions are discussed.