This application proposes to develop a Community Clinical Oncology Program at the Hospital of St. Raphael in affiliation with the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center which will serve as the research base. The Principal Investigator for the CCOP will be Leonard R. Farber, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine and Attending Physician at the Hospital of St. Raphael, Yale-New Haven Hospital, Meriden-Wallingford Hospital and World War II Verterans Memorial Hospital. The Hospital of St. Raphael's CCOP will utilize six clinical protocols developed by the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center and it is anticipated that 109 patients will be placed on these protocols during the first year. The CCOP is designed to create an opportunity to community physicians affiliated with the Hospital of St. Raphael to participate in cancer treatment research by means of clinical trials, to utilize the chosen studies to a greater extent than currently exists, and to place more cancer patients on protocol studies that originate through the participating physicians from the proposed CCOP and the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center. The program will be accomplished with the assistance of a Principal Investigator, a nurse oncologist/data manager, research clerical support, standardized on-study sheets and flow sheets and the affiliation with the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center. The CCOP will improve the care of cancer patients at the Hospital of St. Raphael, provide the most up-to-date cancer treatment available with the standard drug combinations, and make available investigative agents which have not been previously available to patients.
