The National Cancer Institute-American Society of Clinical Oncology Cancer Trial Accrual Symposium: summary and recommendations.

Introduction: Many challenges to clinical trial accrual exist, resulting in studies with inadequate enrollment and potentially delaying answers to important scientific and clinical questions.

Methods: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) cosponsored the Cancer Trial Accrual Symposium: Science and Solutions on April 29-30, 2010 to examine the state of accrual science related to patient/community, physician/provider, and site/organizational influences, and identify new interventions to facilitate clinical trial enrollment. The symposium featured breakout sessions, plenary sessions, and a poster session including 100 abstracts.

The role of cytotoxic therapy with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in the treatment of diffuse large B cell lymphoma: update of the 2001 evidence-based review.

Clinical research published since the 2001 evidence-based review on the role of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (SCT) in the treatment of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in adults is presented and critically evaluated in this update. Treatment recommendations that remain unchanged from the original review include: (1) autologous SCT as salvage therapy is recommended for patients with chemosensitive relapsed DLBCL; and (2) autologous SCT is not recommended for patients who achieve a partial response to an abbreviated induction regimen. New treatment recommendations based on new published data include: (1) autologous SCT as first-line therapy is not recommended for any IPI group; (2) planned tandem or multiple sequential autologous SCT is not recommended; (3) peripheral blood is the standard stem cell source for autologous SCT; (4) age is not a contraindication for autologous SCT, although outcomes in older adults are not as good as in younger adults.

Recruitment of African Americans to National Oncology Clinical Trials through a clinical trial shared resource.

In 2000, using National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI) U54 funds, a clinical trials shared resource was established at Nashville General Hospital at Meharry to attract more African Americans to national cancer clinical trials. This Report from the Field describes the model used to achieve this end.