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Most children with cancer enroll in clinical trials. These trials are most often sponsored by the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Children's Oncology Group (COG). Entry into clinical trials is important to pediatric cancer patients because of the devastating and life-threatening nature of the disease and the lack of curative treatments. Many parents and oncologists enroll their children in clinical trials to receive the best state-of-the-art care, to possibly benefit from the experimental treatment, and to help generate knowledge that may produce effective treatments in the future. There are three types of clinical trials. Phase I trials evaluate safety, toxicity, and dosage level of a drug that has not been previously tested with children. Once a dosage level has been established, Phase II trials test its efficacy for specific types of cancer and evaluate its safety in a larger population. Phase III trials compare treatments that have proven efficacious in Phase II trials against the best standard treatment to date, to see whether it is more effective.

Pediatric Informed Consent in Law and Ethics

Adolescent participation in decisions regarding entry into cancer trials is a critical issue in pediatric ethics that has not been well studied. Voluntary informed consent is viewed by many as the best means of protecting the rights and welfare of individuals asked to participate in clinical research. The ethical value of informed consent rests on the assumption that individuals are able to understand (a) the nature and rationale of experimentation, (b) how the risks and potential benefits of participation may directly affect them or others, and (c) their research rights, including the right to dissent to or withdraw from participation. However, in both law and ethics, minors have been presumed to lack these capacities because of immature cognitive skills, inadequate experiences in situations analogous to the research context, and the actual and perceived power differentials between adolescents, parents, and clinical researchers. Based on this premise, guardian permission is required for participation of legal minors in research.

Empirical Evidence

Out of respect for children and adolescents as developing persons, the child's assent is obtained following parental permission. Research with healthy children and those involved in psychiatric treatment suggests that the ability to understand the nature of one's health condition, the nature of treatment, the purpose of research, and participants' rights in research matures to adult levels somewhere between 14 and 15 years of age (Abramovitch, Freedman, Thoden, & Nikolich, 1991; Bruzzese & Fisher, 2003; Morton & Green, 1991; Weithorn & Campbell, 1982).

Only recently has the consent capacity of children with acute and chronic diseases been studied. Broome, Richards, and Hall (2001), for example, found that understanding clinical trials by children diagnosed with either diabetes or a hematological malignancy was influenced not only by their age but also by their diagnosis (cancer patients' understanding was more compromised) and previous experience with research. In addition, despite their mature cognitive capacities, research suggests that older adolescents may not exert their rights in research because of fear of disapproval by parents, researchers, or health care workers (Abramovitch et al., 1991; Bruzzese & Fisher, 2003; Scherer, 1991; Susman, Dorn, & Fletcher, 1992).

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