University of Texas Gives $100,000 in Grants for Clinical Trials

South Texas children suffering from Leukemia may have been given $100,000 by the University of Texas to get access to clinical trials, through the University of Texas Health Center. According to mysanantonio.com, the $100,000 grant from the National Cancer Institute will provide a patient navigator at the UT Health Science Center's Regional Academic Health Center in Harlingen who will focus his or her time developing and distributing information about trials that are available to young leukemia patients.

What do you think the impact of this grant will have on the study of leukemia? Do you think other organizations will follow suit? Post your thoughts here.

Science Daily: National Call For Cancer Clinical Trial System To Be More Responsive To Community Needs

The United States has seen poor performance in recruiting individuals for cancer clinical trials--especially individuals of lower socioeconomic status. According to this article in Science Daily, new efforts are going to be made in the marketing, design and overall outreach approach to particpation by this population in the cancer clinical trials. A landmark report just released yesterday by the Communities as Partners in Cancer Clinical Trials: Changing Research, Practice and Policy will aid and map out this effort.

Read more here.

Feasibility of Multi-Phase Trials

Mahesh Paramar, Ph.D., from the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit in London, along with some colleagues have "modified standard clinical trial methodology so that multiple therapies or combinations can be compared in a single trial." What this means, is that Phase II and Phase III goals are combined into a single "multi-phase trial," that also would have the benefit of needing less patients. As stated in this article, from Science Daily, Parmar and his colleagues wrote an article for the Journal of the National Cancer Institute detailing their proposal. regarding the practicality of using the approach outlined by Paramer, the authors of the proposal wrote:

"With three real examples, we hope that we have shown that such trials are feasible and can lead to major improvements in speed and decision making"