Minority-Based CCOP at UMDNJ-NJ Medical School/University Hospital Cancer Center

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Minority-Based Community Clinical Oncology Program at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School/University Hospital Cancer Center was established a three years ago. Our program serves a patient population which is primarily form the inner city neighborhoods of Newark, surrounding towns and urban communities of Essex County. The more than 60% of the patients are African American and Latino and have disproportionately low income, high poverty rates and high mortality from cancer. The University Hospital Tumor Registry records about 1000 new cancer cases a year, with disproportionately high incidence of head and neck, liver, and cervical cancer. We also see a high number of cases with breast, gastrointestinal, prostate, lung and brain tumors. The Cancer Center physicians work in collaboration to provide a team approach to therapy. Each new patient is presented at one of 7 disease specific tumor boards or Grand Rounds. The Cancer Center Community has an exceptional track record in outreach to the surrounding community with programs that include the screening and education, a mobile breast and cervical cancer screening program and the Essex County Coalition, all of which have pledged to recruit minority patients to our MBCCOP studies. We have opened more than 50 prevention/control and treatment trials from 6 research bases to have protocols available for most tumor types and for many of the symptoms and adverse events our patients experience from cancer or their treatment. Our Cancer Center Clinical Research Office and its staff have extensive experience with accruing and maintaining minority patients on studies. We will use patient study navigators form the community to develop trust, we will use a novel IRB-approved 'Consent Aide' process for obtaining informed consent from non-English speaking patients and we will incorporate the experience of an outreach specialist to educate patients in the community about clinical trials. We have demonstrated that increased numbers of protocols and increased efforts to educate physicians of available clinical trials increased referral. We outline a model that will ensure accrual of more than 50 minority patients a year each on cancer control and treatment trials.