This application is submitted by the Cancer And Leukemia Group B (CALGB) to begin its sixteenth year as a primary multi-modality Research Base for seven Community Clinical Oncology Programs (CCOPs) and two Minority-Based CCOPs. CALGB is a Clinical Cooperative Group with 30 Main Member institutions and a membership of about 3000 health professionals at about 200 hospitals, clinics and physicians' offices. The overall objective is to provide an organized and collegial environment for community based health care professionals to interact with their academic counter-parts in the development and implementation of cancer prevention and control research studies and the latest cancer treatment clinical trials. CALGB proposes to enhance the translation of new information from a strong basic correlative sciences program in cancer treatment to an evolving strong program in cancer prevention and control research. Major themes are chemoprevention, intermediate markers and quality of life research. Strategies will be developed to assist CCOPs to increase accrual of minorities, women and other underserved people into ethical, high quality clinical trials which will result in a decrease in cancer incidence, morbidity and mortality. A special focus has emerged in cancer in the elderly and a new committee is charged with developing research studies of particular relevance to this rapidly growing segment of the population. CCOPs will be assisted in broadening their networks to include more primary health professionals and specialists to help in the diffusion of state-of-the-art cancer care at the community level. There are seven cancer site committees (Breast, Gastrointestinal, Leukemia, Lymphoma, Melanoma, Prostate and Respiratory) which work closely with thirteen modality committees (Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Correlative Sciences- Leukemia/Lymphoma, Correlative Sciences-Solid Tumors, Transplant, Pathology, Surgery, Radiation Oncology, Psycho-Oncology, Cancer Control, Oncology Nursing, Patient Issues, Clinical Research Associates, Cancer in the Elderly) to plan and implement cancer prevention and treatment studies using the latest technologies and information available. This project will bring these advances to the community hospital level where CCOP trained health care providers can apply them immediately.
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