WEDNESDAY, April 22, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- There was a decrease in the number of unique sites where phase 1 clinical trials for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were conducted between 2020 and 2024, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 17 to 22 in San Diego.
Brittany Avin McKelvey, Ph.D., from the LUNGevity Foundation in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues analyzed interventional, industry-sponsored clinical trials for NSCLC in early phase 1 or phase 1 opening in January 2020 to December 2024 to assess the distribution of early-phase clinical trial sites.
Within the study period, 555 trials opened at all sites in 47 countries, totaling 8,393 trial instances, defined as the initiation of a unique trial at a unique site; most (45 percent) were located in the United States. The researchers found that the number of trials opening increased until 2024, but there was a decrease in the number of unique trial sites and trial instances both globally and within the United States starting in 2022 and continuing through 2024. During the entire study period, there was a decrease in the number of U.S. sites with at least one trial opening (395 sites in 2020 to 223 sites in 2024). This decrease was not seen for the sites with the highest trial volume (top 20 sites had at least 27 trials open in the study period).
"This analysis demonstrates a concerning trend towards trial consolidation at top performing sites in the U.S., further supporting concerns regarding site saturation and conflicting with appeals to decentralize and move trials into the community," McKelvey said in a statement.