Fireside Chats 2. Time Toxicity in Early Phase Trials

For patients with advanced cancer, early-phase trials may represent the last best hope of significant anticancer response. For clinicians, every early phase trial holds virtually unlimited promise and hope of becoming the next immunotherapy or hot antibody-drug conjugate. However, early-phase trials also come with significant uncertainty of efficacy, toxicity and even dosing.

A recent Limbic article (link below) reported on an article published in ESMO Open that investigated the burden of "time toxicity" for patients enrolled in early-phase clinical trials, and advocated for this to be minimised. While it is essential to consider logistic factors and patient preferences, early-phase trials are frequently more inflexible compared to phase II or III studies, and are constructed as such to ensure patient safety in the face of significant unknowns.

In this episode of Fireside Chats, Michael and Josh discuss the pros and cons of attempting to streamline early phase trials, if it is possible, and what can be done to minimise a trial's impact on a patient's day-to-day and quality of life.