Office of Clinical Research |
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The Office of Clinical Research (OCR) at the Cancer Center provides centralized support for the conduct of cancer clinical trials at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center. The office's principal goal is to assist UVA physicians and nurses in the collection of data that are accurate, unbiased, and well-organized. These data must be readily available and retrievable for access by regulatory authorities, individual investigators, and the Cancer Center director and staff. The OCR also supports the Cancer Center Protocol Review Committee, which provides scientific and clinical review of all in-house and industry-supported clinical protocols and ensures that all protocols meet the ethical standards of the university and are appropriate for the patient populations served by the Cancer Center. The OCR also publicizes protocol availability to attending and referring physicians and alerts physicians to patient eligibility, whenever appropriate, for particular protocols. There are more than 100 cancer protocols open at any given time in the OCR. The majority of our protocols are provided by the various National Cancer Institute-sponsored Cooperative Groups. The University is a full member of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG), the Children's Oncology Group (COG), and the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) and is an affiliate member of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) and Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG). In general, the NCI Cooperative Groups sponsor phase 2 and 3 studies of various cancer treatments at multiple Cancer Centers and university medical centers nationwide. The OCR also supports clinical trials of ideas and compounds that emerge directly from investigators and laboratories at UVa. These trials involve new ideas or novel therapies that are not available anywhere else. The OCR supports a number of studies sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry that evaluate promising new drugs for cancer treatment that are not yet FDA-approved. The Office of Clinical Research consists of the following Clinical Research Coordinators (CRCs): Susan Hamil, RN - Hematologic Team Candace Hudspeth, CCRC - Various Heather Lothamer, RN, MSN - Various
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