Carolina Regional Cancer Center Receives Affiliate Membership Of The National Surgical Adjuvant Breast And Bowel Project (Nsabp)
In a joint announcement, The Medical University of South Carolina’s Hollings Cancer Center in Charleston and Carolina Regional Cancer Center (CRCC) in Myrtle Beach are proud to announce that CRCC has been approved as a satellite member of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP). CRCC affiliate membership was reviewed and accepted through its affiliation with MUSC Hollings Cancer Center.
Myrtle Beach, SC (PRWEB) September 17, 2006
The NSABP is a clinical trials cooperative group supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). For almost 50 years, the NSABP has a history of designing and conducting clinical trials that have changed the way breast cancer is treated, and, more recently, prevented. It was the NSABP’s breast cancer studies that led to the establishment of lumpectomy plus radiation over radical mastectomy as the standard surgical treatment for breast cancer.
The NSABP was also the first to demonstrate that adjuvant therapy (additional treatment, usually given after surgery where all detectable disease has been removed, but where there remains a statistical risk of relapse due to occult disease — as is the case with breast cancer where radiation therapy will be given following surgery) could alter the natural history of breast cancer, increasing survival rates, and the first to demonstrate on a large scale the preventive effects of the drugs tamoxifen and raloxifene in breast cancer.
“Our affiliate membership into the NSABP will allow us to provide our patients an additional treatment option of participating in national phase II or phase III cooperative group trials,” said Dr. Steve Bass, CRCC’s medical director. “Our affiliation in March 2006 with MUSC Hollings Cancer Center is beginning to bear fruit so we can better serve our patients.
This will provide area patients the ability to enroll in cutting edge clinical trials investigating new therapies for breast and colorectal cancer right here in Horry County.”
“Surgical Associates of Myrtle Beach is proud to congratulate CRCC and its physicians for this accomplishment which will help raise area cancer care to the academic level,” said Dr. Thomas Polen, FACS and Dr. Mark Borowicz, FACS, of Surgical Associates. “Surgical Associates plans to work closely with CRCC in the coordination and conducting of clinical trials.”
“We plan to work with CRCC in conducting prospective (prior to patient treatment) tumor boards for our cancer patients,” said Dr. Mike Ellis of Associates in Surgery. “These tumor boards will be conducted with other area physicians and specialists from MUSC to provide the best care and treatment options for our patients.”
CRCC and MUSC Hollings Cancer Center are continuing their joint efforts to broaden the local availability of state-of-the-art cancer treatments.
About Carolina Regional Cancer Center
Carolina Regional Cancer Center is a health care facility that provides comprehensive radiotherapeutic services and treatments. The Center has been providing high quality cancer care for over 25 years. The state of the art center is located at 4708 Oleander Drive, Myrtle Beach, S. C. It is staffed by four physicians; R. Steve Bass, M. D., Clinical Director and past chief resident at the Medical University of South Carolina; Todd Williams, M. D., a clinical assistant professor of radiation oncology at MUSC; Paul G. Goetowski, M. D., associate clinical professor at Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and Stephen F. Andrews, D. O., a recent graduate from the prestigious Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Dr. Bass also serves on the Hollings Cancer Citizens’ Advisory Board. For additional information regarding CRCC, please see our Web site www. CRCCmd. com.
About the Hollings Cancer Center
Hollings offers state-of-the-art diagnostic capabilities, therapies and surgical techniques and has multidisciplinary clinics that involve surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation therapists, radiologists, pathologists, psychologists and many other specialists seeing patients simultaneously under one roof. Multidisciplinary care is provided in disease specific clinics such as thoracic, breast, head & neck, genitourinary, gastrointestinal, hematologic, neuro, and pediatric cancers. In 2004 the HCC diagnosed and/or treated more than 1,947 new cancer patients, the largest cancer care provider in the state.
The Hollings Cancer Center is the largest academic-based cancer program in South Carolina. The Hollings Cancer Center is currently funded as a developing
National Cancer Institute designated cancer center and has more than $27M in cancer research funding. More than 1,000 people are currently participating on a cancer clinical trial at Hollings.
About the NSABP
Since its beginning, the NSABP has enrolled more than 100,000 women and men in clinical trials in breast and colorectal cancer. The NSABP is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., and has research sites at nearly 1,000 major medical centers, university hospitals, large oncology practice groups, and health maintenance organizations in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Australia, and Ireland. At those sites and their satellites, more than 5,000 physicians, nurses and other medical professionals conduct NSABP treatment and prevention trials. Their presence at local hospitals and medical facilities means that state-of-the-art clinical trials can be provided to patients near their homes.
The Office of the Chairman and the NSABP Operations Center are located on the campus of Allegheny General Hospital, and the group’s Biostatistical Center is at the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to funding from the NCI, which the NSABP has received since it began; the NSABP also receives support from other sources from ancillary studies, training, and educational programs. For more information about the NSABP please see their Web site www. nsabp. pitt. edu.
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