In a phase II clinical trial, a research team led by Nilofer Azad, professor of oncology and co-leader of the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Program, and Marina Baretti, the Jiasheng Chair in Hepato-Biliary Cancer at the Kimmel Cancer Center, tested the safety and efficacy of the combination of two drugs: an immunotherapy, nivolumab, and an epigenetic drug, entinostat—a histone deacetylase inhibitor.
I have spent over 20 years running a tumor imaging metrics core at an academic cancer center. In that time, I have watched clinical trial enrollment concentrate at a relatively small number of flagship academic institutions. Unfortunately, trials do not propagate well to the community sites where most patients prefer to receive care. The explanations usually offered for why this happens have never fully accounted for what I observed.
