Wednesday, July 20, 2022 Three CCTG trials were recently awarded nearly $7.5M from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) 2022 Spring Project Grant competition. GU ASCENDE-SBRT - Determining the Optimal Radiation Treatment for Unfavourable Risk Non-Metastatic Prostate Cancer Dr. Andrew Loblaw, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, with Drs Wendy Parulekar and Keyue Ding, CCTG, were awarded $4,475,254 over 9 years. In 2020, 23,300 Canadian men were diagnosed with prostate cancer of which one third are estimated to have unfavourable risk, non-metastatic prostate cancer. External beam radiotherapy (EBRT), brachytherapy boost and androgen deprivation therapy is an evidence-based standard of care for unfavourable risk prostate cancer. Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is a non-invasive, high precision, less costly radiation technique that results in similar outcomes and tolerability to brachytherapy boost. If ASCENDE-SBRT shows that SBRT boost is non-inferior to brachytherapy boost for progression-free survival and is better tolerated, SBRT boost would likely become the preferred treatment choice in the future. A total of 710 patients will be enrolled to the study. IND241 SURELY - Using Liquid Biopsy to Optimize New Clinical Treatments for Metastatic Breast Cancer Dr. Moira Rushton with Drs Lesley Seymour and Wei Tu, CCTG, and Dr. Dave Cescon, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, were awarded $2,184,076 over 5 years. IND241 will investigate how the use of liquid biopsy can precisely match patients to promising new therapeutic strategies tailored to their tumour’s unique identity. In addition, we will study changes that are detectable in liquid biopsies that occur before drug resistance develops on standard CDK4/6i treatment to develop future strategies to intercept resistance, by changing or optimizing treatment before tumour growth and symptomatic progression occurs. This platform study represents an important step towards using liquid biopsy to improve the treatment, quality of life, and outcomes for patients with metastatic ER+ breast cancer through individualized treatment delivery. EN.11: Refining Adjuvant treatment IN endometrial cancer Based On molecular features TransPORTEC platform trials - The MMRd-GREEN trial Dr. Stephen Welch, London Health Sciences Centre, with Drs Wendy Parulekar and Dongsheng Tu, CCTG, were awarded $761,175 over 6 years. Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common gynecologic malignancy and the fourth most-commonly diagnosed cancer in Canadian women. Immunotherapy has proven to be effective for mismatch repair deficiency (MMRd) EC, a relatively rare but important subgroup of cancers, which has spread beyond the uterus and has not responded to chemotherapy. However, no study has evaluated if immunotherapy PREVENTS tumour recurrence or spread in early-stage MMRd EC. EN.11, led by the Dutch Gynecologic Oncology Group, seeks to determine if the immunotherapy drug, durvalumab, prevents recurrence or spread when given during and after post-surgery radiotherapy and will provide important information on how the drug affects overall survival, side effects, and quality of life. Tumour tissue will be collected on all trial participants and analysis will help us better understand which tumours are at risk to recur and which will respond to durvalumab. The CIHR Project Grant program is designed to capture ideas with the greatest potential for important advances in fundamental or applied health-related knowledge, health care, health systems, and health outcomes by supporting projects of research proposed and conducted by individual researchers or groups of researchers in all areas of health.
