Cancer Research UK and UCL Cancer Trials Centre is a research department within the UCL Cancer Institute
and is part of the Cancer Research UK Centre at UCL.
We lead on the design, conduct and analysis of national and international cancer trials
and other research projects. The CR UK & UCL CTC is a UKCRC registered Clinical Trials Unit and
NCRI Cancer CTU group member
recognised for its experience and expertise in the development and delivery of clinical trials and research projects about cancer.
The Unit currently has more than 100 staff and is running between 100-120 trials.
The care of patients on trials is provided by hospitals and clinics in the UK and abroad.
The Cancer Trials Centre (CTC) has five key aims. These are:
- To develop and conduct high quality trials to update clinical practice and improve outcomes for patients
- To evaluate new ways of treating or detecting a wide variety of cancers using multi-modal approaches
- To encourage and nurture national and international collaboration with other researchers in cancer
- To translate laboratory innovations into clinical trials and generate new treatments
- To train and develop a new generation of cancer clinical trials specialists
A CTU is a research unit with overall responsibility for the; design and setup of trials, database development and management,
statistical planning and analysis of the data both during the trial and for the publication of results, safety, ethical considerations
and compliance with regulations. CTUs provide regular monitoring (either centrally or on-site)
of the hospitals and clinics treating the patients to ensure that procedures and protocols are being followed.
What type of clinical trials and research projects are run at CTC?
CTC mainly manages phase 1, 2 and 3 trials
- Studying safety of drug in humans
- Finding the maximum safe dose
- Small number of patients
- c. 20% of CTC studies are phase I trials
- Safety study
- Identify side effects
- Measure effectiveness
- Up to 300 patients
- About 40% of CTC studies
- Study to measure effectiveness
- Monitor side effects
- 100 to 1,000s of patients
- About 30% of CTC studies
- Monitor long term effectiveness
- Cancer screening and early detection
- Large scale observational studies: cancer diagnosis and translational and correlative science
- Tobacco & health
- Systematic reviews
- Methodologies for phase I/II trials
To find out more about CTC trials, take a look at the Trial Pages