Clinical Trials Cancer in children is rare. Each year in Canada, slightly over 300 children develop leukemia, 200 develop various kinds of brain and nervous system tumors, approximately 50 children develop neuroblastoma and fewer than 50 develop Wilms' tumor. Rhabdomyosarcoma, retinoblastoma, osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma are less common. Obviously, if progress is to be made on more effective treatment methods, physicians everywhere have to work closely together in designing therapies.
Accordingly, all children with cancer who are treated in a center of excellence are asked to participate in a clinical research program. It is because of these programs that we have made such gratifying progress in the treatment of childhood cancer over the past few decades. Parents and their children are encouraged to participate in them.
Phase III Trials A child may be a candidate for a research program known as a clinical protocol , which will compare one form of treatment to another. The research protocol will be explained and parents will be asked to agree to participate with their child in the program.
The program may involve "randomization," meaning that which one of the several potentially effective treatments the child receives will be decided by chance. Parents are often upset when they learn that if they participate in a research program the decision about which treatment their child will receive will not be chosen by their child's physician.
