Improving survival in neuro-oncology is a struggle; we cannot allow ourselves to also struggle with issues of diversity

Abstract

The events of the last few years have brought the importance of acknowledging errors made in the past to the forefront, while also committing to a more equitable, inclusive, and diverse society going forward. Health inequities across racial, ethnic, gender, geographic, and socioeconomic groups have prevented minorities from sharing in the benefits of scientific advances and have made it difficult to generalize study results to all populations.1 This is far from being a novel concern. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Revitalization Act of 1993, signed into law on June 10, 1993, directed the NIH to establish guidelines for the inclusion of women and minorities in clinical research. In “A Population Study of Clinical Trial Accrual for Women and Minorities in Neuro-Oncology Following the NIH Revitalization Act,” Reihl et al2 conducted a review of literature evaluating the impact of the NIH Revitalization Act 29 years later in improving the representation of women and minorities in therapeutic clinical trials for neuro-epithelial CNS tumors. Their team observed that, despite a small improvement in recent years, minorities and women with brain tumor diagnoses remain significantly under-accrued for neuro-oncology clinical trials when compared with Caucasians and men based on proportional disease burden and demographic-specific mortality.

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