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| Over the past 30 years, cure rates for childhood cancers have improved dramatically. Today, approximately 75% of children diagnosed with malignancies survive. Although there have been notable successes in treatment of many types of pediatric cancers, there remain groups of patients for whom current therapy is ineffective. Despite dose intensive chemotherapy, surgery, and/or radiation therapy, children with certain malignancies frequently battle recurrent, refractory disease that does not respond to treatments currently available. New therapies are desperately needed. The Arizona Children’s Therapeutic and Investigational Oncology Network (ACTION) represents an effort to provide Arizona with the most up-to-date treatments for children with cancer. ACTION is an important step forward for children in the Southwest who suffer from difficult-to-treat malignancies. Through our own initiatives as well as cooperative efforts with other pediatric cancer centers, children with newly diagnosed, relapsed, and refractory malignancies will be enrolled in clinical trials. Our goal is to give these children the most promising treatments currently available for their disease while developing innovative and more effective ways of curing children with cancer in the future. © 2009, Phoenix Children's Hospital.
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