Thriving Research Program
Advancing knowledge and care through research is a vital aspect of the Musculoskeletal Tumor Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Only through innovative, interconnected laboratory and clinical research will advancements be realized so that future patients do even better.
Clinical Research Programs
The basic thrust of the clinician-driven research program is to develop safe and less toxic treatment strategies for the management of musculoskeletal tumors.
World's Largest Multi-institutional Clinical Trials Organization for Pediatric Cancer
Members of the medical and surgical teams at Cincinnati Children's are active participants and leaders in the world's largest multi-institutional clinical trials organization for pediatric cancer, the Children's Oncology Group (COG). Cincinnati Children's is also one of the select centers involved in the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Pediatric Phase I Consortium. This consortium provides early access to new anticancer therapies from the NCI and pharmaceutical industry.
Other Clinical Trials
Cincinnati Children's is also an active participant in clinical trial consortiums with other organizations such as the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense Neurofibromatosis Consortium and the New Agents for Neuroblastoma Therapy Consortium.
Emerging Therapies
A number of novel therapies are emerging from the laboratories of the Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation that may further advance the treatment of children with musculoskeletal cancers. Such initiatives include:
- Gene therapy
- Targeted "oncolytic virus" therapy
- Tumor vaccine therapy
- Radiation-targeted therapies
- Novel, high-dose chemotherapy with stem cell rescue
Laboratory Research Programs
New therapies arise from a better understanding of disease processes. Therefore our program also seeks to study musculoskeletal tumors in the research laboratory.
Our tissue procurement program was established to provide basic science investigators access to tumor samples for study in the laboratory. These samples and the clinical information associated with them are accessible to any investigators who have a protocol approved by the Institutional Review Board. All data in the tissue bank is compliant with the federal Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.
