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What can we learn from oncology surgical trials?

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 13, pages 55–62 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Conducting high-quality prospective clinical trials in surgical oncology remains a challenge, and many seemingly well-designed trials lack this high quality because of inadequate recruitment accrual, lack of clinician interest, or evolution of treatment strategy during the many years over which such trials are conducted. In this Perspectives we examine some of the failures in published surgical oncology trials and discuss why they failed, and we make a critical assessment of the established prospective trial methodology in oncological practice (that is, phase 0, I, II, III and IV trials, and large prospective comparative audits) and how these methods might be used more effectively in future evaluation of cancer-surgery practice.

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  • 18 December 2015

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Bergonie, 229 cours de l'Argonne, Bordeaux, 33000, France

    Serge Evrard & Pippa McKelvie-Sebileau

  2. Department of Surgery, Leiden University Medical Centre, Albinusdreef 2, Leiden, 2300 RC, Netherlands

    Cornelis van de Velde

  3. Department of Surgery, Hopital Ambroise Pare, 9 Avenue Charles de Gaulle, Boulogne-Billancourt, 92104, France

    Bernard Nordlinger

  4. Department of Surgery, and Department of Surgery, School of Translational Studies, University of Liverpool, Aintree University Hospital, Liverpool, L9 7AL, UK

    Graeme Poston

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  1. Serge Evrard
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Contributions

S.E., P.M.-S., and G.P. researched the data for the article. All authors made substantial contributions to discussions of content. G.P. wrote the article and all authors reviewed/edited the manuscript before submission.

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Correspondence to Graeme Poston.

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Evrard, S., McKelvie-Sebileau, P., van de Velde, C. et al. What can we learn from oncology surgical trials?. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 13, 55–62 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2015.176

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