By Admin at 27 Oct 2016, 14:33 PM
Clinical trials are necessary to advance cancer research and uncover new treatments, with the hope of ultimately revealing a cure. In the U.S., however, participation rates in cancer clinical trials are low, to the extent that 20 percent of such trials cannot be completed.
The National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, which has a goal of completing 10 years’ worth of progress in the fight against cancer in the next five years, will include new steps to help improve clinical trials, including increasing the system’s efficiency and transparency.
The steps, which were announced by Vice President Joe Biden, include the following:
- A new application-programming interface developed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to help researchers and patients identify relevant clinical trials.
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is looking into ways to improve clinical trial designs, including modifying criteria for who can participate.
- The Department of Health and Human Services published a new final rule that will require results of applicable clinical trials of not-yet-approved drugs and medical devices to be reported on clinicaltrials.gov. This will allow patients considering their use via a clinical trial to make more informed decisions about participation.
- The National Institutes of Health is working on making clinicaltrials.gov easier to use and access. Clinicaltrials.gov is a registry and results database of clinical studies involving human participants. More than 30 percent of open trials on this site are related to cancer research.
- The Department of Health and Human Services published a new final rule that will require results of applicable clinical trials of not-yet-approved drugs and medical devices to be reported on clinicaltrials.gov. This will allow patients considering their use via a clinical trial to make more informed decisions about participation.
In September 2016, the Blue Ribbon Panel, a group of scientific experts, also presented a report to the National Cancer Advisory Board detailing 10 recommendations to transform cancer research and treatment and reach Cancer Moonshot goals. They include:
- 1. Establish a network for direct patient involvement
- 2. Create a clinical trials network devoted exclusively to immunotherapy
- 3. Develop ways to overcome cancer’s resistance to therapy
- 4. Build a national cancer data ecosystem, so that researchers, clinicians and patients will be able to contribute data, which will facilitate efficient data analysis
- 5. Intensify research on the major drivers of childhood cancers
- 6. Minimize cancer treatment’s debilitating side effects
- 7. Expand use of proven cancer prevention and early detection strategies
- 8. Mine past patient data to predict future patient outcomes
- 9. Develop a 3-D cancer atlas to document the genetic lesions and cellular interactions of each tumor as it evolves from a precancerous lesion to advanced cancer
- 10. Develop new cancer technologies to characterize tumors and test therapies
Through collaborations between medical, research and data communities, this national effort could help to increase access to treatment, unleash new breakthroughs, support patients and ultimately end cancer as we know it.
Sources:
Healio September 19, 2016
National Cancer Institute, Blue Ribbon Panel Report September 2016
WhiteHouse.gov Cancer Moonshot
