{"doi":"10.1016/j.jvsvi.2024.100077","title":"Representation of female vascular surgeons in national clinical trial leadership: Analysis of trends over 20 years","abstract":"IntroductionFemale vascular surgeons constitute 15% of the workforce. Despite an increased pipeline of female vascular surgeons, representation in leadership positions nationally has not maintained pace. We hypothesized that female vascular surgeons are underrepresented as leaders of clinical trials in the United States (U.S.) for several vascular conditions germane to our specialty.MethodsClinical trials registered in the U.S. were reviewed using ClinicalTrials.gov for several index vascular conditions: abdominal aortic aneurysm, carotid disease, hemodialysis access, venous thrombectomy and stenting, and peripheral arterial disease. The specialty and presenting gender of national and site principal investigators were recorded. Gender distribution comparisons were made for trials led by vascular surgeons and non-vascular surgeon physicians. Subgroup analysis was performed for solo and group investigators, intervention types, sponsorship sources, and professional affiliation. Temporal trends were examined to evaluate the relationship between the duration of board certification and clinical trial leadership involvement.ResultsFor all conditions, female vascular surgeons represent 10.3% and 7.8% of national and site principal investigators, respectively. A significantly lower proportion of female investigators were included in national vascular surgeon-led trials when compared to non-vascular surgeon-led trials (10.3% vs 19.9%, p=0.006). However, site investigators had a lower but similar proportion of women in both groups (7.8% vs 7.9%, p=0.89). A significantly lower proportion of female vascular surgeons led clinical trials focused on interventions vs non-interventions (6% vs 11%, p=0.02). There was a trend towards fewer female vascular surgeons conducting industry-sponsored trials for group (8% vs 11%, p=0.3) and solo (5% vs 12%, p=0.1) investigator-led trials. Similar proportion of female investigators had both academic and non-academic affiliations (15% vs 16%, p=0.83). Individual vascular surgeon investigators who were board certified between 1983-2003 included 5.5% women (N=109) as compared to 28.6% (N=84) of women investigators who received board certification between 2004-2023. Finally, female vascular surgeon investigators started leading clinical trials sooner after board certification when compared to male investigators (mean: 5.5 years vs 10.9 years, p=0.0009).ConclusionRepresentation of women leaders in vascular clinical trials lags behind men although this trend has improved over time. However, a percentage of women in vascular surgery are successful in leading clinical trials in early career, suggesting the importance of strong sponsorship and allyship. Furthermore, it is a call to action to our leaders and our industry partners to “lift the curtain” on the pathway to clinical trial leadership.","journal":"JVS-Vascular Insights","year":2024,"id":475110,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9435,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1121446,"name":"Carly Thaxton","orcid":"0000-0001-9270-8708","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":362451,"name":"Sarah Loh","orcid":"0009-0009-5046-3963","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1312288,"name":"Jonathan Cardella","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":258727,"name":"Alan Dardik","orcid":"0000-0001-5022-7367","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1312289,"name":"Britt H. Tonnessen","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":395325,"name":"Valentyna Kostiuk","orcid":"0000-0003-3405-7518","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":12,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:06:16.992586Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}