This page provides figures for ‘accruals’ or the number of people ‘recruited’ to cancer trials in Ireland.
Note: While Cancer Trials Ireland makes every effort to track numbers for all trials in Ireland, in some instances this is not possible. The figures below therefore are accurate for 95%+ of all trials in Ireland.
WARNING: If you are not working in the cancer trials community, you should not interpret the figures below without assistance from Cancer Trials Ireland. While COVID19 and the Ransomware attack have impacted the number of patients recruited to trials, there may be other factors contributing to a decrease/increase in recruitment.
What are the latest figures?
The figures below relate to the full year of 2021, from January 1st – December 31st. They include every type of trial, Clinical Trials (interventional / drug trials / combination drug and radiotherapy trials), radiotherapy trials, medical devices, translational trials (biomarker and observational studies) and registries. The numbers also include academic and industry trials. The data for the same period in 2020 is included for comparative purposes.
| STUDY TYPE | Total for 2021 | vs. 2020 | Non-CTRIAL 2021 | vs. 2020 | CTRIAL 2021 | vs. 2020 |
| Clinical Trial | 303 | 310 | 14 | 28 | 289 | 282 |
| Radiotherapy | 61 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 61 | 10 |
| Medical Device | 26 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 30 |
| Translational | 703 | 688 | 315 | 97 | 390 | 591 |
| Registry | 230 | 1 | 122 | 1 | 108 | 0 |
| TOTALS: | 1,325 | 1,039 | 451 | 126 | 874 | 913 |
What does ‘CTRIAL’ mean?
This refers to studies that have a Cancer Trials Ireland code, because it is a study in which we play an active part, or because it is a study we have ‘adopted’ into our portfolio, in order to include it in DSSG meeting discussions, and for other reasons.
What does ‘Non-CTRIAL’ mean?
This refers to studies whose recruitment numbers we track, but which Cancer Trials Ireland is not involved with in any capacity. Our objective in tracking recruitment numbers on these trials, and CTRIAL trials, is to provide the fullest picture possible for the number of people joining cancer trials in Ireland.
Accruals classified by disease area:
The figures below display patient recruitments in terms of the disease area they were recruited to for the full year of 2021 vs. 2020.
WARNING: Many complex factors contribute to the rise and fall of patients recruitment, including trial availability, trial closure, patient population and so forth. Readers should not simply interpret this data as a measure of performance.
| DISEASE AREA | 2021 | 2020 |
| Basket* | 63 | 46 |
| Breast | 372 | 518 |
| CNS | 2 | 1 |
| GI | 30 | 53 |
| GU | 121 | 93 |
| Gynaecology | 17 | 140 |
| Head & Neck | 8 | 0 |
| Lung | 24 | 0 |
| Lymph & Haem | 191 | 14 |
| Melanoma | 6 | 4 |
| Paeds | 40 | 44 |
| N/A | 451 | 126 |
| TOTAL | 1,325 | 1,039 |
* Basket trails include several different disease areas in one trial.