Grant: Planning Grants

Adolescents and young adult (AYA) cancer patients (ages 15-29) have unique and unmet needs. While cancer outcomes of pediatric and adult patients have improved, similar improvements have not been observed in the AYA population. Addressing complexities of the AYA cancer problem is an enormous undertaking as reflected by CPAC funding, two national workshops (2010, 2012), a new journal, and priority evaluation by the Canadian Cancer Society. Agreed priorities include addressing those issues that are potentially solvable within a 1-2 year timeframe. The operational and regulatory aspects of clinical trials represent such issues. The general objective of this Planning Meeting is to address the special requirements and facilitate the conduct of cancer clinical trials for the AYA population. The Meeting will be conducted under the auspices of the NCIC Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG) and include leaders from the Canadian pediatric cancer C17 Council and the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer's (CPAC) AYA National Task Force. Specifically, NCIC CTG, C17 and CPAC/AYA leadership plan to address and discuss priority operational topics associated with conducting clinical trials across the AYA population. The NCIC CTG is the only Canadian adult cancer clinical trials cooperative group that has national membership and conducts phase I-III trials assessing all modalities of therapy across different cancer types. Our network includes more than 1000 Canadian investigators based at 80 treatment centres. Between 1980 and October 2012, we have conducted or are conducting 259 phase III trials (66,982 patients) and 194 phase I-II trials (5,283 patients).