The Australian Government through Cancer Australia is supporting Australia’s capacity to develop industry-independent cancer clinical trials.
This includes the multi-site collaborative cancer clinical trials groups and the national technical services.
Multi-site Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials Groups
- Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group
- Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group
- Australasian Lung Cancer Trials Group
- Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group
- Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology and Oncology Group
- Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate Cancer Trials Group
- Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association
- Breast Cancer Trials
- Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology
- Melanoma and Skin Cancer Trials Ltd
- Primary Care Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials Group
- Psycho-Oncology Co-operative Research Group
- Trans-Tasman Radiation Oncology Group
- Cancer Symptom Trials
National Technical Services
Health and Pharmaco-economic Technical Service
The Cancer Research Economics Support Team (CREST) within the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE) at the University of Technology Sydney provides this technical services.
CREST provides the CTGs with high quality, expert advice and technical services relating to the consistent inclusion of appropriate health and pharmacoeconomic measures or sub-studies into industry-independent cancer clinical trials protocols.
These services assist the CTGs to incorporate appropriate health and pharmacoeconomic analyses into cancer clinical trials leading to greater economic evidence for future decision-making.
Also available for download is CREST’s Health Economic Checklist for Clinical Trials.
Cancer Australia Chair in Quality-of-Life and Quality-of-Life Technical Services
The Quality of Life (QOL) Office is directed by the Cancer Australia Chair in Cancer Quality of Life (QOL Chair), Professor Madeleine King, based at the University of Sydney.
We all aspire to a good quality of life. Health is a key aspect of quality of life, and when health is threatened, patients, family members and health care providers are united in wanting to maintain quality of life (QOL), despite disease and treatment. QOL is therefore an important consideration in clinical care and an outcome to include in health research. But because it’s a very abstract and dynamic concept, it presents a range of challenges that need to be understood and addressed if we’re to assess it in a scientifically robust manner.
The QOL Technical Services ensure the CTGs have access to high quality, expert advice and technical support relating to the consistent inclusion of appropriate quality-of-life measures or sub-studies into all new industry-independent cancer clinical trial protocols developed. Incorporation of 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.
What are Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs)? As we want to know a patient’s experience of disease and treatment, the best person to ask is the patient – so we often talk about patient-reported outcomes (or ‘PROs’).
Is ‘QOL’ a ‘PRO’? Health-related quality of life is a multi-dimensional PRO – often used as an umbrella term that covers symptoms caused by disease and treatment, impact on various aspects of functioning (e.g. physical, social, role, emotional, cognitive, sexual), as well as global assessments of QOL. So yes, QOL is a complex, compound PRO.
Have you considered patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and/or health-related quality of life (HRQL) in your study? Use the concept checklist below to determine whether the study requires a QOL Technical Service review.
Concept checklist – Word document download
GCCTI Partnership
NHMRC CTC
The NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre (CTC) is Australia’s leading academic clinical trials research organisation. Established in 1988 with a unit grant from the NHMRC, the CTC is affiliated with the Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney. The CTC’s mission is to contribute to best practice in health care and improve health outcomes in Australia and internationally through the better use of clinical trials research.
The NHMRC CTC has established strategic partnerships with leaders in molecular oncology at the Garvan Institute, Kinghorn Centre, Centenary Institute, and ADRI through the Sydney Catalyst Translational Research Centre funded by the Cancer Institute NSW. The CTC also collaborates closely and directly with the following international collaborative trials groups Canadian NCIC Clinical Trials Group, MRC/CRUK, US GOG and RTOG, EORTC, GINECO, Dutch NVALT group.
Zest
Zest is a leader in health communications, programs and consultancy. We have extensive experience in health service improvement, research and evaluation, health communication and digital solutions in the health sector.
We work with a range of health services, health professionals, consumers, researchers, professional bodies, not-for-profit organizations and government agencies. Our skills are complemented by a strategic focus and detailed knowledge of the Australian healthcare system, including cancer research.
Zest is a division of Sydney-based agency Nexus Australasia Pty Ltd.