A Machine Learning Approach for Recruitment Prediction in Clinical Trial Design

Jingshu Liu*, Patricia J. Allen*, Luke Benz, Daniel Blickstein, Evon Okidi, Xiao Shi

Abstract: Significant advancements have been made in recent years to optimize patient recruitment for clinical trials, however, improved methods for patient recruitment prediction are needed to support trial site selection and to estimate appropriate enrollment timelines in the trial design stage. In this paper, using data from thousands of historical clinical trials, we explore machine learning methods to predict the number of patients enrolled per month at a clinical trial site over the course of a trial's enrollment duration. We show that these methods can reduce the error that is observed with current industry standards and propose opportunities for further improvement.