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Advancing targeted therapies for cancer


November 6, 2013

A new research paper by Dr. David Stewart outlines the challenges in conducting clinical trials of new targeted cancer therapies and proposes a number of innovative solutions. These new therapies are designed to preferentially kill cancer cells with certain genetic mutations, but the benefits can be difficult to detect in the typical “gold standard” clinical trial (which includes patients with and without the mutation, and compares against the standard therapy).

Dr. Stewart’s paper provides 18 recommendations for how to improve cancer clinical trials, backed up by previous research and new simulation data. His article is titled “Fool’s goal, lost treasures and the randomized clinical trial” and is published in BMC Cancer.

About the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) is the research arm of The Ottawa Hospital and is an affiliated institute of the University of Ottawa, closely associated with the university’s Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences. OHRI includes more than 1,700 scientists, clinical investigators, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff conducting research to improve the understanding, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human disease. www.ohri.ca

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Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
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