European Journal of Cancer
Volume 45, Issue 2 , Pages 225-227, January 2009

Cancer clinical trial outcomes: Any progress in tumour-size assessment?

  • Jaap Verweij

      Affiliations

    • Department of Medical Oncology, Erasmus University Medical Center, Groene Hilledijk 301, 3075 EA Rotterdam, The Netherlands
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author: Tel.: +31 10 704 1331; fax: +31 10 704 1003.
    • ,
  • Patrick Therasse

      Affiliations

    • GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Rixensart, Belgium
    • ,
  • Elizabeth Eisenhauer

      Affiliations

    • National Cancer Institute of Canada, Clinical Trials Group, Kingston, ON, Canada
    • ,
  • on behalf of the RECIST working group

Received 17 October 2008; accepted 29 October 2008. published online 10 December 2008.

Abstract 

Cancer for many patients is still a lethal disease, and we are at the edge of the time that it will be the leading cause of death in the western world. One of the hallmarks of cancer is its ability to spread to other organs, turning cancer in essence to a systemic disease. For this reason, systemic therapy plays an important role in our efforts to either obtain cure or to prolong life and palliate symptoms. The ultimate goal in the development of such new treatments is cure or prolongation of life, but the process to ascertain this may be lengthy. This presents a limitation to the rapid assessment of the potential benefit of new cancer treatments, which is why investigators and regulators have been interested in clinical trial measures that could provide early readouts of drug activity or efficacy, in other words for surrogate indicators for the ultimately desired outcome.

Keywords: Clinical trials, RECIST, Tumor measurement

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PII: S0959-8049(08)00872-1

doi:10.1016/j.ejca.2008.10.025

European Journal of Cancer
Volume 45, Issue 2 , Pages 225-227, January 2009

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