) The Iowa Oncology Research Association (IORA) is a multidisciplinary consortium of four Des Moines, one Mason City, and one Ottumwa, Iowa hospitals and their surgical, medical and radiation oncologists and related non-physician cancer care staffs. The IORA has been a principal member of the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) since 1979, and has secondary research bases with the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG), National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Program (NSABP), and Children's Cancer Group (CCG). The goals of IORA are: 1) Expand its clinical research efforts in cancer treatment, cancer control, and cancer prevention through the combined participation of its investigators and patient population in NCI approved clinical trials; 2) Support the goals and work of IORA's research bases by involvement of its investigators, nurses, and clinical research associates in protocol development, committees and meetings; 3) Improve the quality of oncologic care of Iowans by use of state of the art treatment and cancer control protocols; 4) Diffuse the knowledge gained from clinical trials to treating and non-treating physicians for the care of non-protocol patients; 5) Sustain the valuable network of cancer clinical researchers and providers in Iowa who collaborate in NCI approved clinical trials and other endeavors such as the NCI's SEER program, the CDC's NIOSH Demonstration Cancer Control Project for Farmers, and NCI Patterns of Care; 6) Increase the community's participation in cancer prevention such as the NCCTG smoking cessation protocols by utilizing recruitment strategies learned from IORA's successful implementation of the SWOG's Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial; 7) Increase primary care physician involvement in cancer prevention; 8) Develop strategies to increase minority involvement in cancer research keeping in mind that Iowa is 97% Caucasian and thus traditionally defined minority groups are infrequent in our population base; however, rural Americans are a minority in the USA population (30% in the 1990 Census) and our program does attract these people. The IORA has a proven tract record as an efficient and disciplined team of investigators who come from three strategically located Iowa communities encompassing six hospitals, eight major group practices and forty-one physicians. The IORA will continue to enthusiastically emphasize quality in its research efforts if awarded a CCOP grant.
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