Children's Oncology Group Chair's Grant

儿童肿瘤学小组（COG）是由四个儿科合作小组合并而成的一个新的多学科临床试验小组。它是世界上最大的儿童癌症研究组织，包括大约238个儿科癌症项目，作为整个北美，澳大利亚和欧洲几个机构的临床试验中心。它完全准备好将基础生物学研究转化为临床研究，并通过人类原理证明，毒性评估，疗效鉴定，并最终纳入既定治疗以改善结果和/或降低毒性来开发转化方法。COG代表了四个团体的遗产，其中最古老的存在了近50年。目前，参加临床试验的48 259名患者正在积极随访中;已挽救了250多万人年的生命。尽管儿童癌症死亡率在过去20年中下降了50%，在过去10年中下降了25%，但仅在美国每年就有近2,500名儿童和青少年死于癌症。这些死亡中的大多数可归因于特定的儿科癌症，必须设计新的治疗方法。这些高危癌症治愈率的提高更有可能是由于鉴定了预测耐药性的生物学特征，更重要的是，鉴定了具有新作用机制的新抗癌剂，其疗效可以根据特定的独特分子生物学特征来预测。 在癌细胞中检测到的异常。COG也是唯一能够建立第一次北美范围内的儿童癌症的人口为基础的登记，调查，利用病例对照研究，潜在的流行病学协会，包括基因改变和最终的基因与环境的相互作用。COG通过一系列假设驱动的研究，寻求最大限度地提高癌症儿童的治愈率;扩大对肿瘤和宿主生物学的理解;阐明新的治疗策略并建立风险调整治疗的概念;减少治疗相关的毒性和发病率，从而优化生活质量和生存率。 在研究期间，儿童癌症死亡率降低20%，5年无病生存率（治愈率）提高至>85%。

The Children's Oncology Group (COG) is a new multidisciplinary clinical trials group resulting from the unification of the four pediatric cooperative groups. It is the largest childhood cancer research organization in the world and encompasses approximately 238 pediatric cancer programs as clinical trial sites throughout all of North America, Australia, and several institutions in Europe. It is exclusively well poised to translate basic biology studies into clinical investigations and to develop translational approaches through human proof of principle, toxicity assessment, identification of efficacy, and ultimately, incorporation into established treatments to improve outcome and/or decrease toxicity. COG represents the legacy of four groups, the oldest of which existed for nearly 50 years. Currently, 48,259 patients accrued to clinical trials are in active follow-up; over 2,500,000 person years of life have been saved. Although childhood cancer mortality has decreased by 50% in the last two decades and by 25% inthe past decade, nearly 2,500 children and adolescents die from cancer annually inthe U.S. alone. The majority of these deaths can be attributed to specific pediatric cancers for which new therapeutic approaches must be devised. Improvement in the cure rates for these high-risk cancers is more likely to emerge as a result of the identification of biologic features which predict resistance and, more importantly, by the identification of new anti-cancer agents with novel mechanisms of action, whose efficacy might be predicted on the basis of specific unique molecular abnormalities detected in cancer cells. COG is also uniquely able to establish for the first time a North America-wide population-based registry of childhood cancer to investigate, utilizing case control studies, potential epidemiologic associations, including genetic alterations and ultimately interactions of genes with the environment. COG, through a series of hypothesis-driven research studies, seeks to maximize cure rates for children with cancer; to achieve an expanded understanding of tumor and host biology; to elucidate new therapeutic strategies and to build on the concept of risk-adjusted therapy; and to reduce treatment-related toxicity and morbidity, thereby optimize quality of life and survival.The proposed research is aimed at reducing deaths from childhood cancer by 20% and increasing 5-year disease-free survival (cure) rates to >85% during the study period.