ArticleThe oncologist2026
Planned time burden for patients participating in phase 2 cancer trials.
Article in The oncologist, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Withstanding the test of time for patients in oncology clinical trials.The oncologist · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundParticipation in cancer trials requires a commitment of time and research burden from patients. Prior work has highlighted the time burden of clinic visits during phase 1 trial participation. We extended these findings to phase 2 cancer trials. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe reviewed a random sample of 73 phase 2 cancer trial arms with results posted on ClinicalTrials.gov 2023-2024. We extracted scheduled visit frequency and procedures from each protocol. Primary outcomes included the absolute number of planned research days (PRDs) in the first 30 days and subsequent months of participation. Secondary outcomes included procedure volume throughout the trial. We also estimated the proportion of progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) spent in clinic.
resultsThe median number of PRDs in the first 30 days of participating in a phase 2 trial was 5 (IQR 4-7) and 2 (IQR 1-3) per month thereafter. Across the course of a trial, patients had a median of 13 PRDs and underwent a median of 13 (IQR 10-22) blood draws, 6 (IQR 2-26) infusions, and 1 (IQR 0-2) mandatory biopsy. PRDs accounted for 10.5% of median PFS and 4.0% of median OS. The average phase 2 trial involved a cumulative 11 patient-months of planned visits.
conclusionPatients in phase 2 cancer trials commit a substantial amount of time to research participation. Further work is needed to compare these estimates to time spent in standard of care and to find ways to reduce the time toxicity of trial participation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.