Our MACC Fund Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders Clinical Trials Office (CTO) at Children’s Wisconsin is made up of many team members with different roles and skills. You may see some of the team members in the hospital or clinic while others work behind the scenes.

Discoveries in the lab help us understand how cancer and blood disorders start and develop. Although lab research doesn’t involve patients directly, it lays the foundation for new treatments. We use this understanding to create different, better ways of treating and curing cancer and blood disorders.
Children’s Wisconsin researchers work in research facilities in affiliation with:

• Children’s Research Institute on our main campus
• Versiti Blood Research Institute on our main campus
• Labs of our partners — the Medical College of Wisconsin and Froedtert Hospital

Types of clinical trials
At Children’s Wisconsin, we aim to provide new and improved cancer treatments through clinical trials. These carefully planned studies are available if your child is eligible, as determined by their doctor. While some patients may not benefit directly, families may choose to participate for reasons such as advancing medical knowledge, addressing illnesses with no effective treatments, or accessing medicines not publicly available.

Clinical trials fall into two categories:

• Therapeutic trials test new treatments for safety and effectiveness.
• Non-therapeutic trials focus on quality of life, collecting health and behavior data through surveys or samples.
• Understanding the trial's goals also involves knowing its research phase, summarized below

Phase I:

• Researchers aim to find a safe dose, this is referred to as the Maximum Tolerated Dose (MTD), decide the best way to give the new treatment or medicine and to see how the new treatment or medicine affects the body (side effects). Phase I trials include a small number of patients.

Phase II:

• Researchers aim to determine if the new treatment or medicine has an effect on a specific type of cancer and to determine how the new treatment affects the body (side effects). Phase II trials include a larger number of patients than a Phase I study.

Phase III:

• Researchers aim to evaluate whether a new treatment or medicine is more effective than an already approved medicine or treatment. Phase III trials involve large groups of patients.