The cancer clinical trials units at the Mater (MMUH) and St Vincent’s Hospitals (SVUH) are the most active centres in Ireland for making clinical trial options available for people with cancer. Our cluster is referred to as Ireland East Hospital Group (IEHG) cluster and includes the MMUH, SVUH and UCD. Since their foundation, thousands of patients have taken part in trials examining novel cancer drugs. As a result of these trials, cancer treatments are available that have changed the lives of women and men all over the world. It is impossible to list all of these drugs but examples include ‘game-changing’ drugs like trastuzumab in metastatic breast cancer, and immunotherapy drugs in melanoma. We plan to increase our ability to open clinical trials so more patients will have access to them. By working together as a single cluster, we are serving a population of greater than 1 million people making us the largest cancer trials cluster in Ireland. We have highly trained, internationally established, cancer doctors and researchers who by working together will have a greater opportunity to attract important cancer trials to Ireland and to develop clinical trials using our own expertise. By developing shared IT systems across the IEHG cluster, we will rapidly generate the data required by sponsors when selecting centres to open studies. Required data, such as how long it will take to open the study, how many patients with this cancer are seen in a year and safety data during a trial, will be easily accessible. For patients with difficult-to-treat cancers, rarer cancers, or those with limited options, a strategic objective is to develop a Phase I unit that will do very early testing of new drugs; this highly specialised unit will be developed by highly experienced oncologists within the cluster.
