Building on 12 years of experience as a CCOP, the Spartanburg Community Clinical Oncology Program (SCCOP) seeks the opportunity to continue to meet our community's need for innovative and relevant studies of promising therapeutic modalities and cancer control research through the Year 2001. The SCCOP provides access to national cooperative clinical trials to nearly a half million people in 6 counties: 3 in South Carolina and 3 in North Carolina. South Carolina is 21st in population density and ranks 14th in the percent who are medically underserved. The service area has a 20% minority base. The regional registry reports over 1,100 new cancer patients per year, an increase of over 158% since 1982. Against this rural background, we developed a three hospital consortium for the conduct of community clinical trials. Unique capacities are demonstrated by the minority accrual over 17% and by the underserved accrual of 84 entries in the last seven years. The SCCOP brings together the strength and resources of a group of multidisciplinary investigators who collaborate in the conduct of studies from SWOG, NSABP, RTOG, and MDACC. The 46 investigators include a single, small, stable, and highly productive practice of 3 hematologists/oncologists along with 41 colleagues in pathology, radiation therapy, surgery, ENT, urology, gastroenterology, as well as internal medicine. The group nearly tripled in size since the early 1990's and together has contributed over 1700 entries to clinical trials since 1983, the start of the CCOP. Over the next five years, the overall aim is to reduce cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality by accelerating the transfer of newly developed cancer prevention, early detection, treatment, patient management, rehabilitation, and continuing care technology to widespread community application. By careful design, the program will focus over 60% of our resources on cancer control research. These complementary objectives of both treatment and cancer control are a ready match for the patient population and fit within SCCOP interests and capabilities. The immediate goals of the SCCOP are to increase our accrual rate to treatment trials; to maintain wide community participation, including minority groups and underserved populations, in both treatment and cancer control research approved by NCI; and to continue to refine cancer control data management capabilities, including the use of a range of resources to identify potential candidates for cancer control research projects. The continuation of the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT), the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT), the Colorectal Prevention Trials, and the upcoming Smoker's Chemoprevention Trial are primary objectives. In summary, the SCCOP track record demonstrates the ability to manage complex clinical research and cancer control activities while producing the highest quality data. The SCCOP has the facilities and well-trained professional personnel to support the full array of studies. The SCCOP staffing pattern, protocol management procedures, patient/participant management approaches, quality control mechanisms, IRS structure and liaison are all in place and functioning to support current and future therapeutic and cancer control activities. Over the next five years, we expect to contribute over 1500 credits to the National Cancer Institute's Community Clinical Oncology Program: over 133 treatment credits and over 183 cancer control credits each year through 2001.
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