The objective of this project is to continue to enroll eligible and evaluable pataint onto Children's Cancer Study Group (CCSG) related studies. The proposed program will provide the administrative support to capture the maximum amount of data on each registered patient patient. This goal will be accomplished by CCSG operations support an efficient utilization of personnel from the Univ. of Texas Health Science Center at Sa Antonio (UTHSCSA) and its pediatric teaching component the Santa Rosa Children's Hospital Wilford Hall Air Force Medical Center in San Antonio is its CCSG affiliate member. The application of the Brackenridge Childrens Hospital in Austin is currently under review by CCSG for affiliate membership. The Principal Investigator will coordinate the activities of UTHSCSA with its affiliate members. Through this mechanism San Antonio will continue to increase its enrollment of patients on CCSG and Intergroup studies (57 over the past 1 months) and to continue to treat and follow those previously enrolled (302 are alive and well currently). San Antonio has a multidisciplinary program devoted to the treatment to childhood malignancies and is an active contributor to many CCSG activities. Dr. T Williams is a committee member of the front-line neuroblastoma studies CCG 323P and CC 372. Dr. R. Parmley is a member of the Leukemia Criteria and the Cancer Biology committees. Dr. N. Clare is a member of the Cytogenetics steering committee. Dr. M Cheah is qualified for membership on the new Cellular and Molecular Biology Committee that is currently under development. Dr. T. Pomeroy is also planning to congribute his expertise in the radiotherapy of Ewing's Sarcoma. San Antonio has made numberous contributions to the understanding and treatment of childhood malignancies in the past and has recently expanded its expertise by the development of laboratory and clinical program in cellular and molecular biology, ultrastructural analysis of leukemias and solid tumors and bone marrow transplantation. San Antonio investigators conducted the 1st Asian F1 vaccination and the 1st American varicella vaccine programs in children with leukemia and lymphoma; demonstrated the usefulness of the tumor isoenzyme, neuronal specific enzymes (NSE), as a marker for Stage IV neuroblastoma at diagnosis and as a prognostic indicator for infants less than one year of age. For the future San Antnio investigators will turn their interests to the study of electron microscopy in unclassifiable types of childhood leukemia, protooncogene expression in childhood tumors other than neuroblastoma, and non immunological bone marrow purging techniques in leukemias and solid tumors.
