Barriers to Pancreatic Clinical Trials Enrollment.

Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer mortality in the United States, causing an estimated 47,050 deaths in the year 2020, and had the lowest 5-year relative survival of any cancer type diagnosed in 2009-2015, at only 9%. In light of this limited prognosis, consensus guidelines from ASCO and NCCN recommend that patients be informed about and/or managed in clinical trials. However, only 4.16% of patients with pancreatic cancer ultimately enrolled in clinical trials in 2014, while enrollment to existing trials is noted to be unacceptably slow.