We are proposing to establish a Minority-Based Community Clinical Oncology Program at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School/University Hospital Cancer Center. We serve a patient population which is primarily from the inner city neighborhoods of Newark, surrounding towns and urban communities of Essex County. The patients are more than 60% African American and Latino, have disproportionately low income, high poverty rates and high mortality from cancer. The University Hospital Tumor Registry records over 1100 new cancer cases a year, with disproportionately high incidence of head and neck, liver, and cervical cancer. We also see a high number of cases with breast, gastrointestinal, prostate, lung and brain tumors. The Cancer Center physicians work in collaboration to provide a team approach to therapy. Each new patient is presented at one of 9 disease-specific tumor boards or Grand Rounds. The Cancer Center Community has an extraordinary track record in outreach to the surrounding community with programs that include the Institute for the Elimination of Health Disparities, Community Partnership for Better Health, screening and education programs through the Cancer Control Committee, Screening Access of Value to Essex (S.A.V.E.) mobile screening program, the Women's Health Initiative prevention studies, the Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Improving Minority and Medically Under-Served Participation and Access in Cancer Clinical Trials (IMPACT) and the Essex County Coalition, all of which have pledged to recruit minority patients to our MBCCOP studies. We propose to develop a coordinated research program through the MBCCOP by opening more than 43 prevention/control and treatment trials from 9 research bases to make available clinical protocols for most tumor types. Our Cancer Center Clinical Research Office and its staff have extensive experience with accruing and maintaining minority patients on studies. We will expand a novel approach of using patient study navigators form the community who communicate and develop trust with patients. This has resulted in an increase in accrual to clinical trials. We outlined a model that will ensure accrual of more than 50 minority patients a year each on prevention/control and on treatment protocols.
Minority patients in primarily urban, medically underserved neighborhoods do not have the same access to cancer prevention/control or treatment trials as more affluent, non-minority patients. We seek to establish and NCI Minority-Based CCOP at the New Jersey Medical School/University Hospital Cancer Center in Newark, which serves such a minority indigent population, to provide them with access to NCI protocols.
| Wieder, Robert; Shafiq, Basit; Adam, Nabil (2016) African American Race is an Independent Risk Factor in Survival from Initially Diagnosed Localized Breast Cancer. J Cancer 7:1587-1598 |
| Wieder, Robert; Delarosa, Nila; Bryan, Margarette et al. (2014) Prescription coverage in indigent patients affects the use of long-acting opioids in the management of cancer pain. Pain Med 15:42-51 |
| Wieder, Robert; Teal, Randall; Saunders, Tracie et al. (2013) Establishing a minority-based community clinical oncology program: the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School-university Hospital Cancer Center experience. J Oncol Pract 9:e48-54 |
