The right pediatric program to deliver your medicine sooner.
A diagnosis of pediatric cancer can be a heartbreaking journey for children, families, and physicians. Often the best treatment option for a child or adolescent with cancer is a clinical trial. These trials involve the most vulnerable patients, and the experience will shape the rest of their lives.
As we prepare for International Childhood Cancer Day on February 15, we think it is important to discuss what patient-centricity means in these trial designs, and how we can create a more positive experience for patients and their caregivers.
International Childhood Cancer Day is a global collaborative campaign to raise awareness about childhood cancer, and to express support for children and adolescents with cancer, the survivors and their families. A key component of the campaign is the importance of addressing the whole needs of the child.
Beyond the diagnosis
Children and adolescents have complex emotional lives in the best circumstances. When they are navigating cancer, these complexities can be amplified. A child in pain, or a frustrated adolescent may fight against the treatment experience, especially when they know that their outcome is not what it was expected to be.
They may feel scared, hopeless, lonely or resentful about their diagnosis and how, treatment or a trial is pulling them away from their friends and life. They may reject any treatment as a way to regain some of that control.
To make clinical trials as engaging as possible, sponsors need to make the emotional, psychological, cognitive and physical needs of patients’ part of the trial plan. That starts with acknowledging that patients and families possess important insights that can help trial planners build better trials.
Inviting patients and caregivers to provide feedback on trial designs and at key points throughout the trial can help deliver the best possible care and support. It also gives patients back some of the power in what can feel like a powerless experience. Being asked what they need, and responding with respect to their perspective and preferences can make them feel like their voices are being heard.
Tips for creating a patient-centric trial for children:
RACE for Future
Insights from patients and families have always delivered huge value to pediatric cancer programs. The impact of their voices will become even more significant with the recent revision of the US Food and Drug Administration’s RACE for Children Act (Research to Accelerate Cures and Equity). RACE is intended to expand treatment options for pediatric cancer patients by requiring all new oncology drugs be tested in children as well as adults if the molecular targets are relevant to pediatric cancer. This change will likely lead to more innovative pediatric cancer studies, which could drive further increase in pediatric cancer survivorship.
The right pediatric program to deliver your medicine sooner.
Specialized expertise and customized solutions across 14 therapeutic centers of excellence, including oncology, GI/NASH, pediatrics, neurology and rare diseases.