The Australian Government, through Cancer Australia is supporting Australia’s capacity to develop industry-independent cancer clinical trials. This includes multi-site collaborative cancer Cooperative Trials Groups (CTGs) and the National Technical Services.
There are fourteen cancer CTGs in Australia, conducting world-class, multi-disciplinary research, including:
- Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group (AGITG)
- Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group (ALLG)
- Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology and Oncology Group (ANZCHOG)
- Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG)
- Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA)
- Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate Cancer Trials Group (ANZUP)
- Breast Cancer Trials (BCT)
- Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology (COGNO)
- Cancer Symptom Trials (CST)
- Melanoma and Skin Cancer Trials Limited (MASC)
- Primary Care Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials Group (PC4)
- Psycho-Oncology Co-operative Research Group (PoCoG)
- Thoracic oncology group Australasia (TOGA)
- Trans-Tasman Radiation Oncology Group (TROG)
GCCTI is one of the three technical services funded by Cancer Australia for multi-site collaborative CTGs under the Support for Cancer Clinical Trials Program. The other two are:
CREST provides the CTGs with high quality, expert advice, and technical services relating to the consistent inclusion of appropriate health and pharmaco-economic measures or sub-studies into all new industry-independent cancer clinical trials protocols developed.
These services assist the CTGs to incorporate appropriate health and pharmaco-economic analyses into new cancer clinical trials leading to greater economic evidence for future decision-making.
CQUEST provides the CTGs with access to high quality, expert advice, and technical support services relating to the consistent inclusion of appropriate patient-reported outcome and health-related quality of life measures or sub-studies into all new industry-independent cancer clinical trial protocols developed.
A diagnosis of cancer and its treatment has considerable impact on the quality-of-life of individuals, their families and carers. Incorporation of patient-reported outcome and health-related 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.