A blueprint for regional excellence in breast cancer care

A blueprint for regional excellence in breast cancer care

This study was funded by the Department of Defense to explore the concept of using electronic data capture and transfer to provide the best and most updated information possible to physicians who are diagnosing, treating and following cancer patients, at each point of contact with the patient.  Tools will be developed to: access personal risk for developing and surviving cancer; store treatment decision making protocols at the time of diagnosis; test these decision making tools; access the quality of data collected; and develop future applications.  This is a dynamic project with the scope of work evolving over time.

The NCCC, with Dr. Dee West as a Co-Investigator, will participate in the Data Quality Working Group and will be involved in developing and executing the study design.  In addition, the NCCC team will help improve the quality of the data collected and its timeliness by comparing the data to that collected in the SEER program.  NCCC staff will also be involved in planning the future cancer registry work to provide more timely and integrated data and to be able to receive more detailed data needed by physicians in patient treatment.  Finally, Dr. West will also be involved in data analysis and report writing.

NCCC staff will be involved in writing human subject protocols and obtaining approval to use the SEER data for the quality aspect of the study, for developing data transfer systems of the study and for addressing regulatory and confidentiality issues.

Principal Investigator: Laura Esserman. Ph.D. 

Co-investigator: Dee West, Ph.D.

Funding Source: Department of Defense (USA Medical Research Acquisition Activity), University of California San Francisco