The Neuroblastoma and Medulloblastoma Translational Research Consortium said this week that it has launched a clinical trial that will use genomic analyses to help guide therapy for children with relapsed and refractory neuroblastoma.
The trial, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and will begin enrollment immediately, will use next-generation sequencing and gene expression analysis to provide information about a patient's disease state and to identify targets for therapy.
"We are confident the genomic-based personalized medicine approach, often defined as 'the right treatment for the right patient at the right time,' will provide the necessary data to validate this approach as the new standard of care in the 21st century,” said Giselle Sholler, the chair of the consortium, in a statement.
Based at the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich., the NMTRC is a network of 11 pediatric cancer clinical trial sites that includes the National Cancer Institute, universities, and children's hospitals.