76% of US counties lack triple-negative breast cancer trials

More than three-quarters of U.S. counties had no active triple-negative breast cancer treatment trials, according to a study published Sept. 28 in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

Researchers from Houston-based University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center analyzed active phase 2 and 3 triple-negative breast cancer treatment trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as of Sept. 30, 2024. They paired trial site locations with county-level census, rurality and vulnerability data to assess whether trials were located where patients live.

Here are five notes from the study:

1. Researchers identified 108 active triple-negative breast cancer trials: 58 for metastatic disease and 50 for nonmetastatic disease.
   
   Of 1,230 U.S. trial sites, 780 offered at least one metastatic trial, compared with 1,150 that offered at least one nonmetastatic trial. Just 73 sites offered four or more metastatic trials.
   
   
2. Of the 748 counties with at least one triple-negative breast cancer trial, 389 had only federally sponsored trials. Those counties were home to about 21 million adult women, or 16% of the adult female population.
   
   
3. Among rural counties, 90.2% had no triple-negative breast cancer trials, compared with 53% of metropolitan counties. Of the rural and metropolitan counties with trials, 80% and 42%, respectively, offered only federally sponsored trials.
   
   
4. Among counties in the highest quartile of health vulnerability, 88.3% had no triple-negative breast cancer trials, compared with 72.2% of all other counties.
   
   
5. No triple-negative breast cancer trials were available in 96.9% of predominantly American Indian and Alaska Native counties, 81.5% of predominantly Black counties, 79.1% of predominantly Hispanic counties and 75.8% of predominantly non-Hispanic white counties.
   
   At the individual level, 36.5% of American Indian and Alaska Native women lived in a county with no triple-negative breast cancer trial, compared with 17.9% of Black women and 13.5% of Hispanic women.
   

Read the full study here.

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