After 20 years, the North Shore CCOP has evolved into a multidisciplinary approach for studying cancer prevention, control and treatment involving physicians from Nassau, Suffolk and Queens Counties in New York. Currently, 81 full-time medical and radiation oncologists plus surgeons, nurse oncologists, social workers and other support staff participate at a variety of locations from physician's offices to medical institutions. The CCOP is part of the NS-LIJ Health System, which has 2 tertiary and 9 other medical institutions in its catchment area to ensure that appropriate populations, including women and minority groups, are accessible to NCI sponsored studies. The North Shore CCOP is the only NCI sponsored clinical oncologic research program on Long Island that is available to its 5+ million-population base. Accrual to the CCOP in the past 5 years has been excellent with a total of 547.3 treatment credits and 325.1 cancer control credits with 1,804 patients enrolled on studies. Cancer incidence in the catchment area is expected to increase by as much as 11.4 percent in the next five years. It is expected that the only issue limiting an increase to a projected 2,800 patients enrolled in studies in the next 5 years is available funding.
The aims for this grant cycle are: (a) improved patient recruitment including increased minority and female enrollment and increased utilization of community practices and outlying institutions through the Nassau Partnership for Healthy Communities program, organization of a community advisory board and expanded use of the Health System's public education programs. (b) improved physician recruitment and performance and increased CCOP participation from specialists other than oncologists, especially in cancer control and prevention trials, by increasing resources to participating physicians to reduce the burden of participating in clinical trials while ensuring data accuracy and timeliness. This will include improving community practitioner access to CCOP protocols via the Health System's telemedicine program and assistance from dedicated outreach nurse coordinators. (c) improved CCOP management including an upgraded data collection and reporting system. Current research bases include: CALGB, NSABP, URCC, UMCC and RTOG. The UMCC Research Base was recently added. Members of the CCOP have been active in the various research bases'activities and have served as members of co-operative group committees, auditors and as principal investigators with main author publications for national studies. We expect that continued support for this program will permit the North Shore CCOP is expand its activities and increase opportunities for oncology patients to receive optimal care in their home environments.
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