The EORTC Imaging Group Reborn
Posted on 6 January 2010
Following months of planning, the EORTC Imaging Group has been reborn and will hold its first meeting on 15 January 2010 at the Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium. The goal of this meeting is to introduce the structure and strategic plan of the Imaging Group to the EORTC Community and to present current opportunities for integrating imaging into EORTC clinical trials. Read more
Success story from the EORTC Radiation Oncology Group
Posted on 6 January 2010
Damien Weber, MD, PhD
Historically, some of the strengths of the EORTC have been its ability to conduct cancer clinical trials designed to optimize therapeutic strategies, to address specific niches such as rare tumors, and to apply a multidisciplinary treatment approach. EORTC studies are in practice large international clinical trials. Large international clinical trials provide the correspondingly large sample sizes needed to detect potential benefits of not only new drugs but also of more effective therapies. Trials in rare tumors, too, require such large multi-centered settings in order to meet enrollment criteria, and if one considers the decreased incidence of advanced stage disease as well as the scientific progress that has led to molecular classification of tumors, then the necessity for large multi-centered trials becomes even more apparent. Read more
Recent achievements and activities of the EORTC Radiation Oncology Group Quality Assurance in Radiotherapy Strategy Committee and Team
Posted on 6 January 2010
The EORTC Radiation Oncology Group (ROG) Quality Assurance in Radiotherapy (QA RT) Strategy Committee and Team would like to provide you with this update on some of its recent achievements and activities.
The EORTC ROG QA RT Strategy Committee and Team have successfully reinforced valuable contacts with other international QA RT groups including the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG), Trans-Tasman Radiation Oncology Group (TROG), Japan Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Read more
EORTC Quality of Life course provided an interactive and high-level scientific discussion beneficial to both seasoned and early career researchers
Posted on 6 January 2010
The EORTC Quality of Life (QOL) course, Quality of Life, Symptom Research, and Patient Reported Outcomes in Cancer Clinical Trials, 25-27 November 2009, Brussels, was attended by over 230 participants from 40 different nationalities. The course offered a comprehensive program with representative views from 33 international QOL experts. Read more
2nd Transatlantic EORTC/US cooperative group trial since implementation of European CTD: an EORTC led study
Posted on 15 October 2009
This past July, the EORTC 26053-22054 trial, the CATNON Intergroup trial, was activated in North America by the RTOG (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group). This trial follows an already successfully conducted trial led by the RTOG (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group) but is first large trans-Atlantic trial sponsored by the EORTC in the post European Clinical Trials Directive (CTD) era. The EORTC is the lead group for this study, and the RTOG is acting as the lead group for this study in North America. Read more
The EORTC Radiation Oncology Group addresses quality assurance in radiotherapy
Posted on 15 October 2009
Review of planned dose distributions from brain (A) and prostate (B) dummy run procedures
Introduction
During the 1980s work on QA RT (quality assurance in radiotherapy) studies was taken up by Emmanuel van der Schueren in close collaboration between ESTRO (European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology) and EORTC. He initiated work to improve the quality of radiotherapy delivery not only for patients included in clinical trials but also for patients routinely treated outside any clinical trial. Read more
Predicting survival using HRQOL information – Major findings recently reported in The Lancet Oncology
Posted on 15 October 2009
Andrew Bottomley, Ph.D
The largest ever performed meta-analysis of health related quality of life (HRQOL) data of the EORTC QLQ-C30 was performed by Chantal Quinten and coworkers, from the EORTC Quality of Life Department, on behalf of the EORTC Clinical Groups.[1] This large scale study took over three years to complete, but the results provide the most robust and compelling evidence amassed to date that HRQOL scores can provide additional prognostic information that can be used to assist in the prediction of survival in cancer patients. Read more
2009 MASCC Young Investigator Award given to Chantal Quinten of the EORTC QOL Department
Posted on 15 October 2009
At the 2009 MASCC (Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer) / ISOO (International Society of Oral Oncology) International Symposium held in Rome this past June, Chantal Quinten, a statistical researcher in the Quality of Life Department at EORTC Headquarters, received a 2009 MASCC Young Investigator Award for her abstract “The association between age and gender with health related quality of life for patients stratified by disease severity: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials”.[1] Read more
Statistics Fellowship
Posted on 9 October 2009
Monia Ouali, Junior Biostatistician EORTC
This past June, Monia Ouali completed a two year fellowship in the Statistics Department at EORTC Headquarters. This fellowship supported by the EORTC Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group allowed Ms. Ouali, under the supervision of Dr. Martine Van Glabbeke, to study the statistical methodology of cancer clinical trials and carry out projects to identify prognostic factors and predictive factors in soft tissue sarcoma. Specifically, she performed retrospective analyses using the EORTC Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group’s (STBSG) database of 12 STBSG trials. Read more
EORTC/EFGCP interactive workshop on Good Clinical Practice
Posted on 25 June 2009
Video on EFGCP Course 2009
Five years ago, the conduct of clinical trials according to Good Clinical Practice (GCP) principles was introduced as a European Union regulatory requirement by the Clinical Trial Directive 2001/20/EC. However, despite overall commitment and best intentions to apply these requirements in clinical trials, monitoring, audits and inspections regularly find complexity and lack of harmonization of varying levels of severity. Read more