Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center is at the helm of a new clinical trials consortium, the Cancer Screening Research Network, or CSRN, created by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, to advance President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot by improving early detection of cancers.
Screening for cancer is a key part of prevention because when more cancers are detected before people develop symptoms, it is expected that treatment — perhaps less aggressive treatment — can lead to better outcomes. Fred Hutch will lead the CSRN’s Coordinating and Communication Center (CCC) and the Statistics and Data Management Center (SDMC) that will oversee cancer screening clinical trials enrolling diverse participants. The initial studies will examine Multi-Cancer Detection assays (MCDs), which look for byproducts of cancer cells in blood or other bodily fluids that could indicate early-stage cancer.