90P Is physician-patient language concordance better for clinical trial enrollment in breast cancer patients? A real-life study

Abstract

Clinical trials are essential for enhancing cancer care and providing the best possible treatment for patients with cancer. HIs, comprising 18.9% of the US population, but only 4% of clinical trial patients. Effective doctor-patient communication is fundamental in establishing a functional doctor-patient relationship, and is vital in delivering high-quality health care. In this study, we question whether physician-patient language concordance affects clinical trial enrollment. The study evaluated 233 patients with breast cancer who consented to experimental clinical trials from 2008-2022 in a private practice in Houston, Texas. All trials had approved translations in English and Spanish. We used logistic regression to model the probability of treatment, adjusting for cancer type, gender, race, ethnicity, and language. Of the 233 patients with breast cancer, 191(82%) were enrolled in a clinical trial, and 96% had providers who spoke the same language. 42 patients were not enrolled, with 95% of patients speaking the same language as their provider. There were 209 (90%) English-speaking, 22 (9%) Spanish-speaking, and 2 (1%) Arabic-speaking patients. Of the Spanish speakers enrolled, 72% had language concordance with their provider. The ethnicity was evaluated, resulting in 72 (31%) patients being Hispanic, 55 (24%) African American, 94 (40%) Caucasian, 7 (3%) Asian, 4 (2%) Middle Eastern and 1 (0.4%) American Indian. The study found that only 6 (3%) patients withdrew consent. After evaluating the results, there was no statistically significant association of physician-patient language concordance with enrollment rate (p=0.776). There was no difference in consent withdrawal (p=0.626), gender (p=0.344) or ethnicity (p=0.13). Our study found no significant difference in breast cancer patients' enrollment in clinical trials when there is language concordance between physician and patient. The medical workforce's efforts to use translators and translated versions of informed consents, surveys or outcome assessments, when available, seem sufficient for our patients to collect the information required to agree to continue enrollment.