- Photo Alex E. Proimos / Foter / CC BY
A total of $4.6 million in funding from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health for the Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP) was announced late last week. CCOP is a network for testing and validating medical treatments for cancer on a community basis.
Delaware U.S. Sen. Tom Carper and Cong. John Carney were joined by some of the representatives from the program’s affiliates for the announcement.
The affiliates are Christiana Care Health System, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, Beebe Medical Center, Union Hospital of Cecil County in Elkton, Md., and Cooper University Hospital in Voorhees, N.J. The money will be used to fund cancer prevention trials, cancer treatment trials and cancer control trials.
“Through this National Cancer Institute grant, people in our area will continue to have access to many cancer trials and our doctors and researcher coordinators will be better equipped to treat and prevent this disease,” said Nicholas Petrelli, M.D., medical director of Christiana Care’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center, located near Newark.
“As we know, government funding for pediatric cancer research is just a fraction – a mere 4 percent – of what is spent on adult cancer research. To get the most out of the funding we receive, we need to work together with our adult oncology colleagues to maintain an efficient and productive clinical research infrastructure,” said Andy Kolb, M.D., director of the Nemours Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. “Collaborative research offers hope for better treatments and cures for all cancers.”
The program was launched in 1983 and Christiana Care Health System began its participation in 1987.
From June of 1987 through May of 2012, 7,276 individuals participated in an NCI designated clinical trial through Delaware’s program.
