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, and black Americans are
twice as likely to die from the disease when they get it. Yet black men are less likely to be included in clinical trials of drugs for the disease - and accidental biases against their biology seem to be partly to blame.
Speaking at a meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology in Chicago this month, Susan Halabi, of Duke University, says her team found that only
12 per cent of the participants in phase 3 clinical trials - the type of late stage trial that is most crucial for drug approval - are black men. This is despite black men making up around
15 per cent of the male population in the US.
Social and cultural factors have long been blamed for lower participation in clinical trials by black men, but researchers are beginning to understand that the way prostate cancer trials are conducted may also be biologically biased against black men.
When researchers establish clinical trials, they will decide upon exclusion criteria. These are usually health issues that could skew a trial's findings on any ill effects a novel drug may have. The idea is that, by testing a new treatment in the fittest possible individuals who have a particular condition, the trial has the best chance of detecting any positive effects. Results can then be generalised to the rest of the population.
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