Breast Cancer: Clinical Trials

(asked on 8th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of breast cancer clinical trials have been paused in England as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 18th June 2020

The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN) has information on 92 breast cancer clinical trials which it was supporting in March 2020. Half (50%) of these trials paused their recruitment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, 45% have continued and 5% have closed.

We have now entered a new phase of the pandemic, where the number of new cases of COVID-19 is declining so the NIHR, including the CRN, is working towards the restoration of research funded and/or supported by the NIHR - including clinical trials on breast cancer. To help initiate this process, the NIHR has developed a ‘Framework for Restart’, which provides a structure to guide the restart, while maintaining local decision-making and flexibility to respond to COVID-19. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/restart-framework/24886

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