Grant: Meetings, Planning & Dissemination Grant: Cancer Research

This grant is for a conference to train pediatric oncology investigators for a newly created monitoring program for cooperative group clinical trials in Canada. Clinical research is crucial in the care of pediatrics oncology as this is often the best standard of care. Survival rates for childhood cancer are approaching 80% largely attributed to cooperative group trials as each trial is based on the successes of the previous trial. Health Canada has mandated an annual monitoring program for pediatric oncology cooperative group studies, which incorporates the Canadian regulatory requirements. The pediatric community in Canada enrol children in clinical trials through the Children's Oncology Group (COG), a US based cooperative group funded through the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The COG monitoring program is performed at each institution every 3 years under the auspice of the FDA. Our request is to bring together the 17 pediatric cancer centres including the principal investigators, the research associates and pharmacists for a conference to train and educate on the new monitoring program that complements the COG monitoring program. As the monitoring program is mandated by Health Canada, failure to implement a robust program will hinder and impede better treatment for children with cancer.