From the Program Director

New Website for BreastCancerTrials.org!

Dear BCT Readers:

In our last issue of talking About Trials, I hinted about upcoming changes to BCT. Now, I’m happy to report, the new BCT is here! Sporting a fresh “look and feel,” the site is easier to navigate, allows users to share trials, and features our new QuickViews: easy access to groups of trials sorted by tumor type or trial category. If you haven’t been to the new site, please visit. We’d love to know what you think.

Our feature article this issue is about how Phase I treatment trials are changing in the era of personalized medicine. The article should be interesting to all patients, but especially to those with metastatic disease. I want to thank Jennifer Wheler, MD,  from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, Pam Munster, MD,  from University of California, San Francisco, and Suzanne Hebert, a patient currently enrolled in a Phase I trial, who each generously shared their insights and experiences.

I am frequently asked how we select trials for BCT. And given Suzanne’s comment that she would not have expected to find her Phase I trial on BCT, this seems like an opportune time.  All of our trials originate in ClinicalTrials.gov, which we access through a license with the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Every week NCI sends us information about newly opened (or closed) breast cancer studies. On occasion, we miss studies that are not exclusively for breast cancer patients, but open to patients with a variety of tumors including breast (solid tumor trials). If you learn of a solid tumor trial that is not on BCT, please let us know. Once we confirm that it is enrolling breast cancer patients, we will obtain its trial information from NCI. With your help, we can continue to ensure that BCT’s trial registry is accurate and up-to-date.

Sincerely,
The BCT Team

The BCT Team: (from L to R): George Weis, Bethany Hornthal, Tom Bechtold, Elly Cohen, Susan Colen, Laurie Isenberg, Erin McCreary, Sue Rochman. Not pictured: Debby Hamolsky and Jeff Belkora