WHO landscape of clinical trials on cancer

Published: September 2025

See also:

What you see | Scope, analysis and limitations | Data sources 

What you see

The data visualization shows the:

• Number of trials (section A): 
  
  • By trial phase over time (A1)
  • By income level of country in which trial is conducted over time (A2)
  • Number of trials in each region over time (A3)
  • Number of trials by region and country (A4) use the selection bar above to choose the number of countries to see per region
• Burden of disease and trials by cancer site (section B)
• Prevalence, mortality and trials by country (section C)
• Characteristics of trials (section D) by intervention type (D1) and sponsor of trials (D2)
• Trial participants (section E) by gender (E1) and ages included (E2)

Note: A trial can be conducted in multiple locations. It is counted once in each separate category if it occurs across categories; therefore, the numbers displayed in these charts may total to more than the total number of trials.

Points to note

• Overview of cancer trials:
  
  • Between 1999 and 2023, 112,899 clinical trials targeting cancer were conducted, of which 12% were on breast cancer (Chart B2) and 9,539  included children (chart E2).
  • The majority of trials are focused on drugs with 4 times as many trials as the next biggest intervention type of procedures (D1)
  • Most trials include both male and female participants (79%, chart E1).
  
  

To explore the data further

• Select a specific age group (chart A.2) or any other specific element or combination of elements to display the corresponding data in the other charts. 
• Hold the ‘Ctrl’ key on your keyboard to select more than one option. 
• Hover the cursor on a bar or a cell in a table to see more information in a pop-up window.
• Undo a selection by clicking ‘undo’ or ‘reset’ near the bottom of the page or by clicking the same element again.

Scope, analysis and limitations of the data

Scope

Our analysis covers clinical trials on cancer from 1999 to 2023, focusing on clinical trials registered in registries which are part of the WHO ICTRP.

Analysis

The analysis leverages data from the WHO's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP). Global cancer prevalence, incidence and mortality statistics were obtained from the GLOBOCAN 2022 database from IARC.

Trial phases in the ICTRP are defined as phases 0 to 4, intermediate phases (e.g. phases 1/2), or not applicable (such as trials of devices or behavioral interventions). All intermediate phases were reassigned to their highest phase (e.g. phases 1/2 to phase 2) and phases that could not be correctly identified (e.g. missing or not applicable) to unknown. Trial recruitment status was categorized as completed, recruiting, and other which included suspended (terminated or withdrawn), not recruiting (e.g., pending recruitment), unknown (status could not be determined), and not applicable.

Country of recruitment was used to categorize each trial to one of the two categories: national or multinational.

Sponsors refer to the responsible group for registering the clinical trial and does not necessarily correspond to the funder of the trial. These sponsors where categorized into five distinct groups based on patterns observed in their names: (i) academic, medical, or research institutions, encompassing sponsors with names that include terms like "university", "hospital", "research", and related variations. The category was structured to accommodate category overlaps, such as a research unit within a university-affiliated hospital; (ii) pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, encompassing sponsors with names that include terms like "pharm," "biotech," "astra," and related variations; (iii) philanthropic, non-governmental organizations (NGO), or federal research funding organizations encompassing sponsors with names that include terms like "association," "foundation," "charity," “society,” and related variations; (iv) public sector institutions encompassed sponsors with names that include terms like "ministry," "government" "national," and related variations; (v) others, or unknowns encompassed sponsors with individual names, names that did not fall into any of the previous categories and names that could not be identified.

Limitations of the data

Automated data mining techniques were used to extract information on the primary disease targeted in each trial, using text-based data fields. It's important to note that if a cancer is not included in our analysis, this does not necessarily imply there are no trials concerning that disease. Rather, it may reflect limitations in our data mining process, which could have missed capturing trials related to the specific cancer.

Data sources

• WHO's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP)
• GLOBOCAN 2022 database from IARC