Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Department of Pediatrics

Through membership in the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) some pediatric patients that are being treated for various forms of cancer at Mount Sinai have the option to be enrolled in progressive research studies.

History of COG

Forty years ago, cancer was virtually a death sentence for a child. With so many different types of childhood cancer, no single hospital saw enough patients at one time who were similar enough to allow for effective research. In 1956, a group of experts at several hospitals began to pool their expertise and ideas, patient populations and results in treating children with leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer. This consortium was the nation’s first cooperative research group, a model that has since become the standard for medical research of all kinds.

The COG now consists of thousands of doctors, nurses, and other experts who treat children with cancer, as well as scientists who discover new treatments in the laboratory. The group is made up of over 200 top medical institutions across the United States and beyond. The Mount Sinai Medical Center is one of these designated institutions.

As a COG member, the Mount Sinai Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology must maintain the highest standards for treating children with cancer. We follow COG-defined protocols to prove scientific, medical, and ethical scientific expertise. It is vital that we maintain a multidisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, basic scientists, and other specialists with the skills needed for state-of-the-art diagnosis, treatment, care, and investigation of childhood cancer.

How Cooperative Research Works

• COG conducts over 150 concurrent studies covering all the principal cancers of infants, children, and adolescents. Many of these studies are currently open for patient enrollment at Mount Sinai. Over 40,000 patients world-wide are being treated according to COG research protocols. These clinical trials compare the best available treatment to one or more experimental treatments, which are carefully developed with the goal of yielding even better results.
• When a child is treated on a COG protocol, all the information about the patient’s diagnosis, treatment and results is sent to the Group Operations Center. There all the data are collected and analyzed, and findings are published for the entire membership.
• In addition to these data, tissue samples and cell lines may be collected and stored for the use of group members in current and future research. The group also maintains laboratories essential to the diagnosis, treatment and research of childhood cancers.
• Research findings are shared with the entire membership through ongoing communication, publications, and meetings. The group then builds on this knowledge to determine the next steps for research. Because the data from many patients are combined, clinical trials obtain results more rapidly, and new treatments are developed hundreds of times faster.

For more information about COG research please visit their Web site at
www.curesearch.org/our_research/.