Clinical Trials

Theme Co-leads:

    Stephanie Badour, Lorena Cook, Norman Cook, Rebecca Deyell, Daniel Morgenstern, Sébastien Perreault and Kirk Schultz

Clinical trials play a crucial role in testing novel treatments and technologies to advance medical knowledge and improve patient care. Over the past four decades, clinical trials were vital to improving the 5-year overall pediatric cancer survival rate from 10 to nearly 85 percent. However, despite these remarkable strides, survival rates remain very low and stagnant for some pediatric cancers, particularly if the disease recurs (relapses) or does not respond to initial therapy (refractory).

Most clinical trials of novel therapies and technologies are conducted in adult patients and are not routinely tested in children. Consequently, many treatments remain insufficiently studied in children, so healthcare providers only have minimal safety and effectiveness data to guide their use in children. In fact, the current delay between therapy approval for use in adults and the subsequent approval for use in children is nearly a decade. Clinical trials may also provide patients the opportunity to access promising novel therapies, which is especially important when standard treatment options provide limited benefit.

The aim of the Clinical Trials research theme is to establish a national clinical trials infrastructure and develop remote access pathways to trials to support Canadian-led trials and improve pan-Canadian trial availability.

Priorities

  1. Support Canadian investigator-initiated trials (IITs) across disease areas.
  2. Develop Canadian capacity to support innovative therapeutic modalities (for e.g., cellular therapies network).
  3. Establish a Clinical Trial Incubator program to support earlier concepts to build the pipeline of future IITs in Canada.
  4. Formalize pediatric cancer-specific remote access pathways to improve national trial availability and streamline the initiation of future clinical trials.
  5. Centralize operational support for participating pediatric hospitals to enable site research personnel to prioritize patient-facing responsibilities, thereby enhancing overall trial recruitment, safety, quality, and efficiency.