Dr. Wistinghausen on Developing Drugs for Children With Cancer

Birte Wistinghausen, MD, medical director of the Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, the Kravis Children's Hospital and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses developing drugs for children with cancer.

Wistinghausen says that one of the challenges with developing drugs for children with cancer is access. New drugs are developed more frequently, and often introduced first, in adult patients. Most of the work being done in the early stages of development is attributed to the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Phase I Consortium, Wistinghausen says.

This is a very important group for COG, because they can test new drugs in a limited institution setting, and then move them very quickly to a group-wide setting. COG includes over 200 institutions, and if each institution contributes a couple patients, it allows for streamlined drug development, Wistinghausen explains. Through this method, new drugs can then become available for every child in the United States with cancer.