The contract provides support to the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP), Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD) by systematically testing agents in childhood cancer preclinical models. The purpose of having a systematic evaluation of a panel of pediatric preclinical models is to prioritize new agents for study in children with cancer. The contract provides preclinical efficacy and pharmacokinetic data to correlate with clinical findings for tested agents. The contract tests 10-12 agents or combinations of agents per year against a panel of preclinical models of the childhood cancers that occur most commonly in children. In order to calibrate the pediatric preclinical panel, some of the agents tested are standard chemotherapy agents for which clinical activity against specific tumor types is known. For agents tested, pharmacokinetic studies are performed to determine the serum drug levels and systemic exposures associated with antitumor activity. Results obtained from the preclinical testing program are correlated with the clinical activity and with the pharmacokinetic profile of the tested agents to assess the predictive capabilities of the program. The project objective is to improve survival for children with cancer by identifying for clinical testing the most effective agents from among the universe of oncologic agents potentially available for evaluation in children with cancer.
