Africa ‘critically’ underrepresented in cancer trials

Dearth of trials could lead to ineffective cancer treatments in African populations

Africa is critically underrepresented in clinical trials of cancer treatments, which could lead to them being less effective in Africans, an analysis has found.

The analytics company GlobalData Healthcare studied clinical trials in Africa from 2016 to 2021. It found that only 6.9 per cent of African trials focused on oncology, compared with 32.8 per cent of North American trials, 26.9 per cent of Asian trials and 23.7 per cent of European trials.