Children's Hospital Colorado Experimental Therapeutics Program
Most children diagnosed with cancer today will be cured. Unfortunately for some with very difficult-to-treat cancers, standard therapy is ineffective. The Experimental Therapeutics Program (ETP) within the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children's Hospital Colorado was created to support the development of and enhance the access to the most promising new therapies for children, adolescents and young adults.
We are the only program of this type in a 12-state region, and conduct phase I and II trials of new cancer treatments that are promising in early studies but not yet widely available. We actively participate in Children's Oncology Group (COG), Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigators' Consortium (POETIC), Treatment Advances for Leukemia and Lymphoma Consortium (TACL), and New Agents for Neuroblastoma Treatment (NANT) Consortium clinical trials.
Our program was developed in response to the need to bring new therapies to children who need them the most -- those with cancers with the poorest prognosis. Since inception, we have drawn patients from 40 states and 19 foreign countries for consultation and treatment and have one of the largest and most active phase I portfolios in North America. At present, the demand for consults and enrollments to our open trials exceeds our staffing capacity. This project is to help us support the infrastructure needed to meet the increasing demands for enrolling more children on our trials with the ultimate goal of improving their prognosis and advancing treatment options.
