This planning grant requests funds to further develop the academic programs for the Surgical Oncology Service the Department of Surgery and the Gynecologic Oncology Service in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The Surgical Oncology Service has recently received approval for a two-year Fellowship Program in Academic Surgical Oncology beginning in 1984. A major thrust of our planning in the next few years will be to provide an optimal research and training environment. We have focused upon specific areas of clinical research involving melanoma and head and neck carcinomas during the past five years. This experience will serve as a model for broadening the scope of our clinical research to include gastrointestinal cancers, breast cancer and sarcomas. Our basic science research efforts in cellular immunology has reached a level of conceptual unerstanding and technical feasibility to address some of the complex problems involving human tumor immunology in a more sophisticated manner. Substantive collaborative efforts are also underway involving immunogenetics and clinical pharmacology in our cancer patients. Thus, our program planning is at a phase of expanding the breadth and depth of our Surgical Oncology Program, both in research and in training. The availability of funding through this planning grant mechanism would be an important catalyst to insure the success of this program development. The Gynecologic Oncology Service has had a two-year fellowship training program approved by the American College of Obstetrics and Genecology since 1973. In the past, the fellowship has strongly emphasized clinical and surgical training. Recently, the Service has received approval to expand the program to one fellow at each level. This will enable us to broaden the training program to include a significant amount of clinical and basic research utilizing the wealth of clinical material available and the excellent supporting personnel in the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Thus, the Gynecologic Oncology Program is entering a new phase with the emphais changing from predominantly clinical training to a program with emphasis on academic endeavors. The funding of this planning grant would help insure the success of this effort.
| O'Brien, C J; Soong, S J; Urist, M M et al. (1987) Is modified radical neck dissection only a staging procedure? Cancer 59:994-9 |
