Cancer trials to evaluate diagnostics and treatments
This article was originally published in Clinica
Cancer research groups around the US have been awarded government funding of nearly $4 million a year to conduct far-reaching trials of diagnostic tests and treatments for the disease.
The trials, which will be conducted over a number of years, will produce definitive surgical approaches to some of the most common cancers such as breast, lung and colorectal cancers and recommendations for which equipment should be used. They will also evaluate new molecular markers and the role of interventional therapy in patients genetically predisposed to cancer.
The clinical trials project will be run by the American College of Surgeons with funding from the National Cancer Institute. It is the first NCI-funded multicentre group set up to study cancer for 18 years.
Seven trials have already been set up looking at: Sentinel lymph node sampling for breast cancer; PET scanning in non-small-cell lung cancer and oesophageal cancer; lymph node sampling versus lymph node removal in lung cancer patients; the prevalence of hidden disease in lung cancer patients; the usefulness of replication error phenotyping in inherited colorectal cancer; high temperature treatment for melanoma of the arms and legs; and aggressive chemotherapy for retinoblastoma in children.
The trials could firmly place PET scanning in clinical use for cancer imaging. "I hope that the trials will identify the appropriate role for PET in the pre-treatment imaging of lung and oesophageal cancer," said Dr Edward Trimble, head of the surgery section at the clinical investigations branch of the NCI.