New initiatives aim to test more cancer drugs for children.

Since the 1970s, the mortality rate for children and adolescents with cancer has dropped by almost 50%, but the cure rate for pediatric cancer has plateaued in the past several years because there are relatively few new drugs being tested for childhood cancers, says Joseph Simone, M.D., professor emeritus of medicine and pediatrics at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The number of cancer cases in children and adolescents each year is small—about 12,500—compared with the number in adults, and drug companies are reluctant to invest money in clinical trials for such a small population. Moreover, it can be difficult to enroll enough patients who meet specific enrollment criteria. When drugs are tested, there is usually a 5-to 10-year gap between the time they reach adults and the time they reach children. " There is a consensus that there won't be a rise in cure rates without new agents, " said The Children's Oncology Group (COG) and its phase I consortium have conducted the lion's share of childhood cancer clinical trials. But recently, a new group called POETIC (Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigators) has formed with the goal of testing additional drugs for pediatric cancer in locales with major medical institutions not served by COG. " COG has been an international leader in bringing many new drugs to the pediatric population, but some of us have just been frustrated at not being able to bring more new drugs to kids faster, " said Lia Gore, M.D., assistant professor of pediatric oncology at the