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Clinical Epidemiology Studies in Children's Oncology Group Clinical Trials

Institution: 
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Researcher(s): 
Richard Aplenc, MD, PhD, MSCE
Grant Type: 
Epidemiology Grants
Year Awarded: 
2013
Type of Childhood Cancer: 
Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), Neuroblastoma
Project Description: 

Background
Despite the fact that cooperative group oncology trials have improved overall survival for children with cancer, investigators face significant challenges in conducting trials. This application seeks to develop novel data sets to improve the effectiveness of cooperative use trials by using administrative clinical data from approximately 100 hospital sites.  Administrative clinical data contains an enormous wealth of information and its value has only recently begun to be realized in health-based research.  

Project Goal
We plan to develop a research platform by merging data from the Children's Oncology Group (COG) trials with administrative data from Pediatric Health Information Systems (PHIS) and the Case Mix data sets, which will enable us to study more effectively disease characteristics, relapse and death risk and hospital resources utilized. This application has the potential to significantly increase our knowledge of the characteristics, care and treatment of ALL, NBL, and AML.