Section of Clinical Trials
Chairman: Professor Judith Bliss
Introduction
The main objective of the Clinical Trials and Statistics Unit (ICR-CTSU) is to initiate, conduct, analyse and disseminate the results of national and international randomised clinical trials of cancer treatment. The work of ICR-CTSU directly influences routine clinical practice within the NHS and overseas. More than 100 UK centres enter patients into our trials, with many centres entering patients into more than one trial. 2800 participants were randomised into ICR-CTSU trials in 2008. ICR-CTSU has continued to expand over recent years and also works in close collaboration with the International Collaborative Cancer Group, a group co-ordinating trials in breast cancer throughout Europe.
The ICR-CTSU is an NCRI accredited and a UKCRC registered clinical trials unit. Our trials form an important component of the national portfolio of randomised trials in breast cancer, urological cancers and radiotherapy.
Recent Highlights
- Development of trials with translational endpoints (POETIC, MAPLE, EPHOS-B)
- Implementation of targeted breast cancer trials (TNT)
- Development of the urology trial portfolio (BOXIT, SPARE, ProSTART, Penile TPF)
- Continued exploitation of data from large trials such as ABC, IES, START and TACT, helping to answer subsidiary questions about disease and its effect on patients’ quality of life
- Implementation of two new breast radiotherapy trials (IMPORTs High and Low)
- Implementation of a new head and neck cancer radiotherapy trial (COSTAR)
- Recruitment of 4391 patients from 116 centres into the TACT 2 trial
- START results published in the Lancet (Volume 371, Issue 9618, Pages 1098 – 1107) and presented at ASCO 2008
- TACT results presented at San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2008
- BC2001 initial results presented at ESTRO and ASTRO annual meetings in 2008
Future aims
- To increase generic and exploitable links with the clinical and translational research programme of The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the ICR and other collaborators on our multi-centre trials
- Further development of psycho-social aspects of research
- Increase portfolio of surgical trials and trials in other cancer sites
- To continue to analyse our ongoing trials, maximising the scientific and clinical information derived therein
- To initiate new trials and increase recruitment to current trials
