Summary
This study looks at whether a type of testing called pharmacogenomic testing can help children and teenagers with cancer receive safer and more effective medicines.
Pharmacogenomic testing checks DNA (from a cheek swab or blood sample) to understand how the body might react to certain medications. This can help doctors choose the best drug and the right dose for each person, instead of using a "trial and error" approach.
Who is it for?
Children and adolescent patients with a new diagnosis of cancer or who are about to receive a stem cell transplant can take part.
Study details
Everyone in the study will have pharmacogenomic testing done looking at a range of genes and genetic variants linked to medication response.
Participants will be randomly allocated (by chance) to either the control arm or the study arm.
Control arm
Standard of care prescribing will be completed for 12 months. Participants will receive pharmacogenomic test results according to the current standard of care. At week 13, the extended pharmacogenomics report will be released.
Study arm
Extended pharmacogenomic prescribing will be completed for a period of 12 months. Participants will receive pharmacoogenomic testing across a range of clinically relevant variants, to guide the dose and drug selection of 27 drugs commonly used in supportive care. The report will be released at week 4.
In both arms, the participants will be followed up for a minimum of 12 weeks, with maximal time-period being 12 months depending on time of enrolment.
What is being measured
Researchers want to know if using pharmacogenomic results early helps reduce side effects from medications. To do this:
- Participants will complete a survey three times over 12 weeks about any symptoms or side effects they experience.
- An academic pharmacist will then talk with families to better understand the severity and cause of any side effects.
Researchers will also look at how this approach affects:
- Quality of life, using a child-friendly survey (CHU9D) completed three times over 12 months.
- Healthcare costs, by reviewing Medicare and PBS data (with consent) to compare expenses between the two groups.
Data from the study will be securely stored on the REDCap database. Patients will be allocated a unique patient identifier prior to their de-identified data being added to the database.