$965,000 funding for COGNO trial

MEDIA RELEASE 

Wednesday 25 July

The Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology (COGNO) at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney, has been awarded $965,000 as part of a funding package from CanTeen to give adolescent and young adult cancer patients access to cutting-edge treatment.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt and youth cancer organisation CanTeen today announced the allocation of $3.2million to 4 clinical trials, including a COGNO trial led by A/Prof David Ziegler.

The Australian Young Cancer Patient Clinical Trials initiative, which has been made possible through the Medical Research Future Fund, has the ultimate aim of pursuing research breakthroughs that change lives.

CanTeen CEO, Peter Orchard, said that cancer is the leading cause of death from disease among adolescents and young adults, who have significantly poorer survival rates than children or older adults for cancer types that are common in their age group.

“This announcement brings participation in clinical trials much closer to those young people who truly need it,” he said.

“We know young people in the 15-25 age group are often caught between being too old for paediatric trials but still too young for adult trials and that taking part in early phase clinical trials is the fastest way to access cutting-edge cancer treatment.”

COGNO Chair, Professor Anna Nowak, welcomed this support from CanTeen, which will fund a national trial on personalised targeted therapy for adolescent and young adults with medulloblastoma, a malignant brain tumour. “This trial will give adolescent and young adult patients access to state of the art tumour profiling to ensure optimal treatments, reduce toxicities and improve cure rates.”

NHMRC CTC’s Director, Tony Keech, said, “We are very pleased to be able to provide CanTeen with quality trials for teenage brain cancer research. This is an area that desperately needs quality research to improve outcomes for this critical group of our community.”

Media contacts:       Emma Rackley, Communications Officer, NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre 02/ 9562 5063, emma.rackley@ctc.usyd.edu.au Jessica Rubinchtein, Public Relations Manager, Sydney Children’s Hospital, 02 9382 0448 / 0458 234 21, jessica.rubinchtein@health.nsw.gov.au 

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