Purpose of the Cancer Trials Support Unit
The Cancer Trials Support Unit (CTSU) is a service of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) designed to facilitate access to NCI-funded clinical trials for qualified clinical sites and to support the management and conduct of those clinical trials. CTSU Membership provides access to a wide range of information and support services for qualified investigators and research staff. The CTSU Registration Page provides additional details regarding member access. For those who are not CTSU Members this website provides a listing of active protocols that the CTSU supports along with links to resources for additional information on NCI-funded clinical trials.
More about the Cancer Trials Support Unit
The NCI launched the CTSU in 1999 to streamline and harmonize support services for phase three Cooperative Group cancer clinical trials funded by the NCI. Since that time the scope of the CTSU has expanded to include support of multiple NCI-funded networks and clinical trials of all phases and types including cancer treatment, prevention and control, advanced imaging and correlative science studies. The CTSU collaborates with the NCI and its funded organizations to develop and support operational processes and informatics solutions leading to cost-effective solutions that reduce administrative burden on the clinical sites.
Under guidance of the NCI, the CTSU provides centralized services to support the following goals and objectives:
- Facilitate investigator and research staff participation in selected NCI multi-center programs and their clinical trials.
- Increase investigator and patient awareness and enrollment to cancer clinical trials.
- Provide standardized, integrated, and comprehensive support services to selected NCI multi-center programs.
- Identify best practices and streamline or eliminate redundant processes and procedures.
- Improve operational efficiency, enhance productivity and deliver products offering measurable business value to selected NCI multi-center programs.
NCI cancer research networks supported by the CTSU include:
- NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) - is a clinical trials research network that provides an infrastructure for NCI treatment, screening, and diagnosis trials. The infrastructure allows investigators to begin clinical trials quicker, reach conclusions faster, and offer patients studies that incorporate precision medicine at over 3,000 clinical sites.
- NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) - is a community-based program that brings cancer clinical trials, as well as cancer care delivery research, to individuals in their own communities, thereby generating a broadly applicable evidence base that contributes to improved patient outcomes and a reduction in cancer disparities.
Additional NCI and NIH services that work in conjunction with the CTSU include:
- NCI Central Institutional Review Board (CIRB) - reduces administrative burden of local institutional review boards and investigators by partnering with local institutions to provide human subject protections by conducting IRB reviews of NCI-sponsored trials.
- NCI Clinical Trials Search - NCI's website helps you find NCI-supported clinical trials that are taking place across the United States, Canada, and internationally. The list includes all NCI network trials.
- NIH ClinicalTrials.gov - is a registry and results database that provides easy access to information on clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world.