The Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Columbia University Medical Center is located in northern Manhattan, New York. In our neighborhood, which is 71% Hispanic and 14% Black, 31% of residents are living below the poverty level, and cancer is the leading cause of years of potential life lost. Our challenge is therefore to develop the science and the services to prevent, control, and treat cancer in our community. Our specific objectives are: 1) to attract and educate potential study participants, especially minorities and the underserved, about participation in state-of-the-art cancer clinical research;2) to keep participants engaged in their clinical studies and inform them of research results;3) to provide a menu of NCI-sponsored Clinical Cooperative Group trials and pharmaceutical studies to our investigators, including those in the local medical community, for screening, prevention, cancer control, and treatments;and 4) to establish close relationships with the newly restructured NCI Clinical Cooperative Groups to enhance the benefits of clinical research. In the past three years, the RRMO and the Clinical Trials Management Office (CRMO) have combined to recruit more than 3,342 subjects to interventional studies, including, therapeutic trials, prevention and cancer control studies and survivorship initiatives. We have enrolled more than more than 2,502 minority subjects in clinical trials, most of them NCI-sponsored. Despite the effectiveness of the RRMO, it does not recruit for all studies. With an MBCCOP we will be able to expand the outreach to a broader range of participants by 1) supporting outreach recruitment to a wider range of oncology subspecialty trials, e.g. pediatrics, surgical specialties, and more medical oncology trials, etc. and 2) it will allow us to open more cancer control and prevention studies as there will be additional resources available through the MBCCOP. This will allow us to be comprehensive across the disease, age and treatment spectrum and broaden the range of organ/site specialties and to enroll still more minority patients in a wider range of cancer research trials.
The goal of this study is to reduce the burden of cancer for the underserved minority population in our catchment area. We plan to use outreach to educate our population about clinical research and prevention, cancer control, and supportive care along with cancer trials to improve the health of the entire community.
