The Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP) was developed to address two major isssues in the current treatment of patients with malignancies: first, that the vast majority of patients with cancer are receiving their care in a private practice, community hospital setting; and second, that a number of critical questions in oncology can only be answered by increasing the number of patients entered into clinical research protocols. During the last decade, large numbers of well-trained oncologists have entered private practive in community settings, creating the opportunity to involve these physicians and their patients in the clinical research process. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center will function as the research base for four CCOP's. Memorial will provide the expertise needed to develop and implement new protocol studies, the biostatistical support to analyze these trials, and the personnel to implement quality control measures needed to assure that the clinical research being generated is of the highest caliber possible. The Memorial-affiliated CCOPs may be unique in that Memorial will not only function as a research base but will also provide the bulk of patients entered into any particular study. This circumstance should provide an opportunity for careful analysis of the quality of the data being generated by the CCOP participants, as compared to that obtained from Memorial investigators. Memorial will thus be well placed to address a major question of the CCOP program: can high quality clinical research be performed in a community setting? Auditing of CCOP data, matched-pair comparability analysis of Memorial and CCOP patients, and review of eligibility and evaluability of Memorial and CCOP patients on the same study will be performed.
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