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Facilitating platforms
and cross-tumour
research projects
Platform to facilitate the implementation
of ECTGs research strategy: the Clinical
Trial Facility (CTF) Platform
This platform will help institutions to set up
international clinical trials in the framework of
thenewEUClinicalTrialsRegulation(536/2014/
EU), and will allow researchers to share their
experiences and solutions to issues related
to the Regulation’s implementation. It will
provide templates and advice for the hurdles
faced (e.g. practicalities and contracts) when
implementing non-commercial clinical trials
across multiple countries and sites, including
the specific issues arising when trials are
run in partnership with the pharmaceutical
industry. Within ENCCA, a consortium of five
European academic institutions has been
created to speed up the implementation of
early phase investigator supported trials.
Clinical epidemiology platform for
outcome research – The PICORET project
The Population Improvement in Childhood
Cancer
Outcomes
through
Research,
Evaluation and Trainingproject (PICORET) will
address theneedsof clinical epidemiologyand
outcome research in paediatric haematology-
oncology. Several paediatric cancers have
a high survival rate with treatments that
have been established through prospective
European randomised trials. Population-
based cancer registries measure overall but
not relapse-free survival, and so there isn’t
sufficient information on the effectiveness of
first line therapy at a population level.
PICORET will monitor the survival of all
children and adolescents with cancer
in Europe and evaluate progress across
Europe using information from registries
and observational studies that use standard
treatments.
Such
‘non-interventional’
clinical studies can assess effectiveness of
biomarkers, which can be used for prognosis,
and allow analysis of traditionally hard-to-
research areas, such as surgical and imaging
techniques.
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A EUROPEAN CANCER PLAN FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Credit University of Nottingham, Children’s Brain
Tumour Research Centre, United Kingdom
From AIEOP. Credit Attilio Rossetti photographer, Italy