Cancer Symptom Trials

Professor Meera Agar: Cancer Symptom Trials was established in 2017 and it aims to undertake industry independent or investigator-led clinical trials to address the unmet needs in cancer symptom controls of Australians living with and after cancer. Cancer Symptom Trials' vision is that all Australians living with cancer or after cancer are experiencing a symptom-free life and that may be through the best practice management of cancer symptoms or preventing them in the first place.

Cancer Symptom Trials has a number of ways that we develop ideas into clinical trial concepts. The first is that members and stakeholders can bring a clinical trial idea to the group for further development and this usually has arisen out of their lived experience of cancer or a gap that they're seeing in their clinical practice. Secondly, we have workshops where we actually develop ideas around the particular theme and this is often brought to us by a group of clinicians, or have been identified as an area of priority.

Cancer Symptom Trials really believes that early career researchers are the future. We need the next generation of researchers in the area of cancer symptoms to make sure that we continue this exponential growth in research in this area and make sure we can address the multitude of questions that need to be addressed to improve cancer symptom control.

We need to work together as clinicians, consumers and researchers to improve the lives of people living with cancer and improve their cancer symptom control. So I'd really encourage you to get involved. Everyone has something to contribute and if we work together, we really can make sure that cancer symptoms are improved for the future generation of Australians living with cancer.