6/20/2012
Summary of the 2012 "Turning the Tide Against Cancer Through Sustained Medical Innovation" Conference in Washington, D.C.
On June 12, the National Brain Tumor Society joined other members of the cancer and health policy communities in Washington D.C. for “Turning the Tide Against Cancer Through Sustained Medical Innovation”, a national conference hosted by the Personalized Medicine Coalition, the American Association for Cancer Research, and Feinstein Kean Healthcare.
Key barriers were identified and discussed from the scientific perspective that involved advancing cancer research and fully realizing personalized cancer medicine, and from the policy perspective, involving advancement of cancer research, oncology care and containment of healthcare costs.
Themes and critical issues that were raised in the three-part panel series include:
• The challenges of clinical trials, standardized patient-centered information, and the need for improved development of companion diagnostics and biomarkers
• The question of what do patients value? And how do you measure the true effectiveness of care and thus determine what should be funded?
• The need for a better match between science and policy to advance personalized medicine, the need for team approaches to research, and the challenge between the need for diagnostics to advance personalized medicine and healthcare cost containment
In addition to reaffirming the National Brain Tumor Society's public policy focus in strengthening research, advancing therapies, and improving health care, the conference also verified several key research and policy issues including our efforts to strengthen the field of systems biology cancer research, improve brain tumor tissue acquisition for research, and update the regulatory regime for brain tumor clinical trials endpoints.
To learn more about the conference and see the full “Turning the Tide Against Cancer Through Sustained Medical Innovation” program, visit turningthetideagainstcancer.org.
