The CICCOP is the community-based clinical research program which brings clinical trials of high scientific validity to the people of Central Illinois. The CICCOP was founded in 1987 by a small group of medical oncologists who remain committed to implementing protocols to test potential therapies. The CICCOP has contributed 1,230 protocol entries since 1987. The goal of the CICCOP is to reduce cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality by accelerating the transfer of newly developed technology to widespread community application.
The specific aims are to: 1) Provide regional access to persons in Central Illinois to national clinical trials for both treatment and cancer control. 2) Educate patients and families and the community about the availability of research studies, including minorities, women, and the medically underserved. 3) Maintain a consortium of quality institutions and physician investigators committed to furthering cancer treatment and cancer control through research. 4) Collaborate with regional physicians, nurses, data managers, hospital administration and research bases to provide a wide range of cancer control research protocols. 5) Recruit new investigators into CICCOP from other areas in the state that are underserved in order to expand access to the people of our region while sustaining the quality and integrity of cancer treatment and cancer control clinical trials. 6) Involve a range of specialty and primary care physicians in cancer prevention protocols throughout the CICCOP service area. 7) Seek opportunities to further expand the scope of the CICCOP into other Illinois communities while guarding the highest quality of research. 8) Provide quality data management services to the physician investigators. 9) Maintain and enhance quality assurance procedures, physician participation policies, pharmacy regulatory requirements, and protocol selection methods. The CICCOP is comprised of two key component hospitals in Springfield and Decatur, four affiliated practices, and one affiliated cancer control hospital. We have 1,230 hospital beds (68 oncology unit beds) and 2,043 newly diagnosed cancer patients. There are 11 medical oncologists and 86 physician members of the multi-disciplinary teams. Our 34-county Service Area serves 2.1 million people (19.2 % of the population of the state), covers 19,510 square miles (33.7% of the land in the state), and includes 33.3% of the 102 counties in Illinois, the 6th largest state in the Union. A small core of highly productive oncologists, a network of on-site research nurse/data management teams, and a Central Office for program management, monitoring, and quality assurance, together with very strong hospital support will enable the CICCOP to meet its obligations to the NCI and to our communities by far exceeding CCOP program minimums. Between 1995 and the year 2000, the CICCOP will earn over 2,250 credits, an average of 450 annually from treatment cancer control and follow-up credits.
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