Poster Presentation Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting 2026

Beyond counting participants: a method for evaluating Australia's cancer clinical trials infrastructure (146265)

Martha Gerges 1 , Prudence Stanford 2 , Jennifer Thompson 2 , Delaine Smith 3 , Denise A Caruso 4 , Janina Chapman 4 , Alison Evans 5 , Caitlin Fancis 5 , John Andrews 5 , Robyn Strong 6 , Karen Price 7 , Jessica Roydhouse 8 , Rachel San Pedro-Loyola 8 , Tim Luckett 8 , Charmain Strauss 9 , Fran Hyslop 9 , Rayan Saleh Moussa 9 , Vanessa Yenson 9 , Brendan Mulhern 10 , Lutfun Hossain 10 , Richard De Abreu Lourenço 10 , Vino Pillay 11 , Oscar Laclaustra 11 , Eng-Siew Koh 11 , Joanne Cory 12 , Louise Christopherson 12 , Sandra Bahamad 12 , Justine Robertson 13 , Gabrielle Byars 13 , Katja Loewe 13 , Janelle M Jones 14 , Haryana Dhillon 15 , Kirsty Galpin 15 , Megan T Sanders 16 , Rebecca Montgomery 17 , Susan Goode 17 , Samantha R Oakes 18
  1. Centre for Operational and Research Excellence, The George Institute for Global Health; Academic Project Operations, The George Institute for Global Health, Australia, Randwick
  2. Australian & New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate (ANZUP) Cancer Trials Group, Randwick, NSW, Australia
  3. Australasian Leukaemia & Lymphoma Group (ALLG), Richmond, Victoria, Australia
  4. Australia & New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA), Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  5. Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG), Camperdown, NSW, Australia
  6. Australian and New Zealand Children's Haematology / Oncology Group (ANZCHOG), Clayton, Victoria, Australia
  7. Breast Cancer Trials, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  8. Cancer Quality of Life Expert Service Team (CQUEST), Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  9. Cancer Symptom Trials; Centre for Improving Palliative, Aged and Chronic Care Through Clinical Research and Translation (IMPACCT); Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia
  10. Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE); Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  11. Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology (COGNO), Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
  12. GI Cancer Trials, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  13. Melanoma and Skin Cancer Trials (MASC Trials), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  14. Primary Care Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials Group (PC4); Department of General Practice and Primary Care; University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
  15. Psycho-oncology Co-operative Research Group (PoCoG); Faculty of Science, School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  16. Thoracic Oncology Group of Australasia (TOGA), Thornbury, Victoria, Australia
  17. TROG Cancer Research, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
  18. Australian & New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate (ANZUP) Cancer Trials Group; Honorary Senior Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health; School of Clinical Medicine, UNSW Sydney, Randwick, NSW, Australia

Aims

Across 2007-2027, government funding through Cancer Australia's Support for Cancer Clinical Trials Program will support up to 14 Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials Groups (CTGs) and the supporting National Technical Services (NTS). These groups are Australia’s investigator-initiated, industry-independent cancer clinical trials infrastructure, a unique system designed to increase the number, scale, and equitable participation in cancer clinical trials. Individual trials evaluation fails to capture what this shared infrastructure builds over time, and no system-wide account of its impact existed. We aimed to design and apply a method to evaluate CTG- and NTS-reported impacts from this national infrastructure.

Methods

A CTG-initiated working group developed a standardised questionnaire spanning quantitative and qualitative domains, using five categories: investment, capability, delivery, leverage and translation into policy and care. All 14 CTGs reported group-specific data for the 15-years between 2009–2024. NTS also provided data. Data were cleaned, reconciled, and synthesised. Conservative aggregation rules governed heterogeneous historical reporting: ranges and thresholds were counted at their lower bound, non-quantifiable claims were retained narratively, and non-equivalent measures were qualified, not pooled.

Results

Aggregation across CTGs and NTSs proved feasible for trial activity, participation, research outputs, selected translation signals, consumer involvement, and additional support. Equity, some practice impacts, and non-monetised contributions were not quantifiable and were retained as qualitative evidence. The synthesis exposed a measurement asymmetry: historical reporting captured what the system did more reliably than what it changed, revealing a structural blind spot in evaluation of this national infrastructure.

Conclusions

Australia's CTGs and NTSs function as a distributed national research infrastructure whose cumulative contribution requires system-level assessment to measure impact. A structured, longitudinal method makes this contribution visible while preserving transparency about uncertainty, attribution, and non-equivalent data. Sustaining shared impact definitions and reporting would strengthen evaluation, accountability, and investment in Australia's cancer clinical trials research capability.