Our objective is to improve the overall outlook for patients with malignant diseases. This objective includes not only efforts to prolong the survival of such patients, but also to improve the quality of their lives. We recognize that relatively speaking, at any one institution, these diseases are annually encountered in numbers too small to allow controlled clinical trials within a reasonable time frame. Our participation as a member institution of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) enables us to surmount this difficulty. We have been a member institution of the CALGB for 21 years. We have established a functioning multidisciplinary team-effort for planning and actual dispensing of treatment of patients with cancer. Appropriate specialists from medical oncology, surgery, radiation therapy, pathology, psychiatry, social service and nursing department are fully involved. Consistent with our approach to the patient as a whole rather than only to the cancer site, our studies lay particular stress on predictive testing both in vivo (staging) and in vitro, to determine the most effective therapy. By involving all medical and paraprofessional staff in such controlled clinical trials, we encourage the investigational and research traits in our faculty. In many respects, the development of our efforts has paralled the development of CALGB. During the period of study in this grant application we will strive towards increasing accrual of patients on CALGB studies and also towards developing new protocols originating from LIJ for group-wide trials. Senior members of staff from LIJ and affiliated institutions have provided leadership roles to the entire group in areas as diverse as study design and chairmanship of major leukemia protocols to Constitution & By-Laws and Ethics and Peer Review committees. Our institution has a well established tradition of conviction and dedication to CALGB activities in efforts towards control of cancer.
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