Quality of Institutional Participation in Multicenter Trials

Abstract

To the Editor: Sylvester et al.* conclude in the October 8 issue that participation in multicenter clinical trials should be restricted to institutions whose expected accrual will exceed some predetermined number of patients. This conclusion was based on an analysis of the quality of information from four studies involving 1050 patients, conducted by the European Organization for Research on Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). They showed that the quality of participation by institutions averaging less than five patients per year was inferior.The experience of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) does not support this conclusion. Regardless of the rate of . . .