The COVID Pandemic’s Lingering Impact on Clinical Trials

June 28, 2021

(Nature) – For many regions in the United States, the biggest blows to clinical research came between March and May 2020. Trial enrolments plummeted at many medical centres as prospective participants shied away from risky trips to hospital, and research staff were either furloughed or co-opted to aid hospitals’ COVID-19 treatment efforts. Some trials were deemed too dangerous to continue. Bagiella recalls the decision to pause a heart-transplant trial: transplants, and the treatments for suppressing the immune system that often come with them, were especially risky during a pandemic. She adds that “operating rooms around the country became intensive care units”, so trials involving elective heart surgery were disrupted. (Read Full Article)