The Australian Government through Cancer Australia has funded the following National Technical Services to assist the Multi-site Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials Groups (CTGs) supported by Cancer Australia under the Support for Cancer Clinical Trials Program to develop industry-independent cancer clinical trial protocols.
Health and Pharmaco-economic Technical Services
Provides the CTGs with high quality, expert advice, and technical services relating to the consistent inclusion of appropriate health and pharmaco-economic measures or sub-studies into all new industry-independent cancer clinical trials protocols developed.
These services assist the CTGs to incorporate appropriate health and pharmaco-economic analyses into new cancer clinical trials leading to greater economic evidence for future decision-making.
Quality-of-Life Technical Services
Provides the CTGs with access to high quality, expert advice, and technical support services relating to the consistent inclusion of appropriate patient-reported outcome and health-related quality of life measures or sub-studies into all new industry-independent cancer clinical trial protocols developed.
A diagnosis of cancer and its treatment has considerable impact on the quality-of-life of individuals, their families and carers. Incorporation of patient-reported outcome and health-related quality of life measures or sub-studies into all new clinical trials helps identify effective interventions which can improve cancer outcomes whilst ensuring that the patient impact of new or modified interventions is assessed and understood.
Genomic Cancer Clinical Trial Initiative (GCCTI)
Provides the CTGs with expert advice and technical services relating to the development of cancer clinical trial protocols that specifically target cancer mutations/molecular markers across a range of tumour types. Many tumours from different sites of origin have cancer mutations/molecular markers in common and the prognostic outcome of treatment can often be improved by targeting these mutations/molecules.
Collaborative development of cancer clinical trials protocols for mutations/molecular markers which are common to several tumour types will increase our understanding of the effectiveness of targeted prevention and/ or treatment interventions, supporting the delivery of efficient evidence-based best-practice care.