Introduction: Cancer clinical research networks (CRNs) play a vital role in medical research globally by generating investigator-initiated research, pooling expertise, and enabling recruitment across multiple sites. Completing clinical trials is challenging. Delays can slow the generation of evidence needed to refine the best patient treatments. The aim of this review was to identify factors that have been either proposed or shown by research to influence the performance of CRNs to improve cancer trial success, outcomes and impact.
Materials and Methods: A scoping review was conducted using a systematic search across five databases [PROSPERO CRD42023414241]. Records were screened for eligibility. For included articles, data on factors and research methods were extracted independently by up to three reviewers, and disagreements resolved by discussion.
Results: 1,928 articles were returned, 13 were included. Articles reported on 11 membership-based cancer CRNs with headquarters in four countries (eight in the USA). Factors influencing CRN performance broadly fell into six categories: site, CRN, consumer, regulatory, policy and industry factors, with sub-categories in each case.
Conclusions: These findings may help to inform future research to prioritise and improve the day-to-day performance of membership-based CRNs and other trial sponsors to optimise cancer clinical trial success. Further research is warranted.