About the project
Where cancer trials reach—and where they don't.
The Cancer Clinical Trial Access Map is an independent research initiative examining the geography of cancer clinical trial access across the United States. Using publicly available data and road-network analysis, it measures how far patients must travel to reach recruiting cancer treatment trials—and reveals the communities that remain underserved.
Designed for patients, advocates, researchers, cancer centers, and policymakers, the map translates complex data into actionable insights about where clinical trials are available, where access gaps persist, and where targeted investments could make a difference.
Why it exists
Breakthroughs in cancer treatment mean little to patients who cannot access them.
Although many Americans live within driving distance of a recruiting cancer clinical trial, substantial geographic disparities remain. Patients in rural and underserved communities may face long journeys to participating sites, creating barriers to treatments that could improve or extend their lives.
National averages can obscure these differences. By examining access at the county, congressional district, and state levels, the Cancer Clinical Trial Access Map makes geographic disparities visible to the communities and decision-makers best positioned to address them.
The interactive map focuses on travel distances for adults aged 55 and older to recruiting cancer treatment trials. It also explores potential approaches to expanding access, including decentralized trial participation, community-based research sites, and policy initiatives aimed at reducing geographic barriers.
The goal is not simply to document disparities, but to help inform decisions that bring cancer research closer to the patients who need it.
About the creator
Neha Y. Agrawal, MD, is a physician and hematology–oncology fellow at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, with interests spanning cancer care delivery, health policy, clinical research, and equitable access to cancer treatment.
Dr. Agrawal created the Cancer Clinical Trial Access Map to make disparities in clinical trial access more visible, measurable, and actionable—and to connect advances in cancer research with the broader goal of ensuring that patients can benefit from them, regardless of where they live.
Questions, corrections, collaborations and press: open an issue on GitHub.
Working with a cancer center, advocacy group or research team that wants district- or catchment-level analysis? Reach out the same way.
How it is built
- Trials.
- ClinicalTrials.gov API, limited to recruiting, interventional cancer treatment trials with a United States site and open to at least some adults aged 55 or older. Supportive-care studies are screened out. Refreshed weekly.
- People.
- Census Bureau tract centroids and American Community Survey population, so distance is measured from where people live rather than from a county's center.
- Distance.
- The shortest driving route on the highway network, in road miles. Trial sites are placed at the center of their ZIP code or city, so distances are approximate. The routing is compared against published city-pair distances and independent routing.
- Policy.
- Congressional district boundaries from the Census Bureau, members and cosponsors from public records, with the map vintage stated on every brief.
- Context.
- Cancer mortality from NCI/CDC State Cancer Profiles, rural–urban classification from USDA, and Medicare-enrolled oncologists from CMS Care Compare.
Every number on the site is generated from code that downloads these sources; none is typed in by hand. Definitions, limitations, known errors and the results of independent checks are on the Methods & data page, and the full pipeline, weekly snapshots and validation reports are public on GitHub. AI-assisted tools were used in developing the site and its data-processing code; errors may remain, and suspected errors can be reported on the issue page.
How to cite
Agrawal N. Cancer Clinical Trial Access Map (beta). https://cancertrialaccess.org/map.html
Each view of the map has a “Copy link to this view” button that reopens the same place, filters and tab, so a figure in a brief or paper can point to exactly what was shown.
Independence statement
The Cancer Clinical Trial Access Map is an independently developed research project using publicly available data. It is not an official initiative of MD Anderson Cancer Center, NCCN, or any other affiliated organization.