Better Access to Clinical Trials Could Save the Lives of Cancer Patients

After coughing up blood one day, Armen, a security guard at the Montreal General Hospital (MGH-MUHC), was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer.
He was able to participate in a clinical trial led by MUHC thoracic surgeon Dr. Jonathan Spicer, Medical Director of the McGill Thoracic Oncology Network. This trial successfully paired immunotherapy with chemotherapy before and after surgery resulting in a higher rate of overall survival for lung cancer patients with resectable disease.
Today, Armen is thankful to be in remission and doing well. “Thanks to Dr. Spicer and the whole team, I am now doing well and back to work. I am grateful to be alive. It’s not only me, this team also saved the lives of many other patients.”
But according to the Quebec Cancer Federation, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in Québec. Hospitals throughout the province refer patients with complex thoracic cancers to the MUHC, which treated 1,000 lung cancer patients in 2023, but survival rates are lower for those living outside of Montréal.
These patients don’t have local access to the latest treatments and higher quality of care available in clinical trials run in Montréal, which generally require weekly scans and checkups.
Dr. Spicer wants to equalize access to clinical trials for patients across the province. “We see a huge opportunity to enable our network of referring hospitals to participate in these innovative trials to overcome these postal code disparities, improving outcomes and advancing scientific discovery,” says Dr. Spicer.
Learn about Dr. Spicer’s transformative work and the story of his patient, Armen, in this video:

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