Clinical Trials for Children with Cancer - Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders

Throughout the last 30 years, the survival rate for children affected by cancer has dramatically improved due to the availability of new, more effective drugs and treatment regimens, new techniques such as bone marrow transplantation, and improvements in supportive care measures, including antibiotics and transfusion support.

However, the single biggest reason for success in the battle against childhood cancer has been the long-standing and widespread participation of childhood cancer patients in clinical trials. A clinical trial is a treatment protocol which combines state-of-the-art treatment with clinical, or patient-oriented, research.

Studies have demonstrated that childhood cancer patients participating in clinical trials have, in general, better outcomes than patients who do not participate in such studies.

Phoenix Children's, recognizing the importance of clinical trials in identifying more effective treatments for children with oncologic diseases, participates in national and international clinical trials for children. Increasing the number of children participating in well-designed clinical trials will lead to more rigorous and more rapid evaluation of promising new treatments.

We are affiliated with the Arizona Cancer Center and a member of the newly formed Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutic Investigator Consortium (POETIC), a group of major pediatric oncology centers devoted to designing and conducting early clinical trials of promising new therapies with an emphasis on translating basic science into clinical treatments for children.

Phoenix Children's is also a member of the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Consortium and the TACL (Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia) Phase I/II consortium of leading pediatric oncology groups in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Using these vast resources, our mission is to give the children of Arizona the most promising treatments currently available for their disease while developing innovative and more effective ways of curing children with cancer in the future.