ideasIdea
Every tumour sequencing report lists open, nearby, matched trials pulled live
The report that tells a patient their tumour's mutations should also tell them which trials are recruiting for those mutations within reach, with the status checked that week rather than copied from a stale list.
Genomic testing laboratories would embed a matching step at report generation: variants are mapped to trial arms (OncoKB and CIViC annotations, ClinicalTrials.gov structured eligibility), filtered by geography and current recruiting status confirmed by direct query, and listed with a contact. Some commercial reports do this partly; the idea makes live status confirmation and geography the standard, with the same section in public-lab reports.
Hypothesis
Reports with live, local, matched trial listings increase genomically matched trial enrolment by at least 50 percent relative to reports listing only 'potential trials' without status or geography, as measured in a lab's own follow-up data.
Rationale
The genomic report is one of the few documents both the oncologist and patient read carefully; trial listings there are seen at the right moment. Stale status is the main reason clinicians ignore existing listings.
What would test it
A large testing laboratory randomises report templates (live matched listing vs standard) across ordering practices for six months and follows enrolment through its registry.
Maturity
early clinical
Who has to act
industry
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
1
Bottlenecks it attacks
- Trials enrol too few, too slowly · Fewer than one in ten adults with cancer joins a trial. Trials close for lack of patients, not lack of ideas.
- Knowledge reaches practice too slowly · Knowledge diffusion is slow: it takes years for a proven result to change what most patients receive, and no one can keep up with the literature.