Cancer Care Consultants, Freeman Memorial Hospital win grant to improve access.

2004 NOV 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Cancer Care Consultants, a Southern California radiation oncology practice, in conjunction with Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, has received a $3.5 million disparity grant from the National Cancer Institute to improve access to clinical trials for patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and other malignancies that afflict the community which they serve.

The grant funds the Urban Latino African American Cancer (ULAAC) Disparity Project which helps provide access to breakthrough medical treatment for those groups who historically experience low levels of participation in clinical trials. Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital's department of radiation oncology currently serves a population that is approximately 45% Latino and 45% African American with a median household income of $32,000.

"This grant creates an unprecedented opportunity to reduce disparities in access to radiation oncology, cancer prevention, and translational research trials," said Cancer Care Consultants' Michael Steinberg, MD, who will serve as the principal investigator of the project. "The project will extend access to radiation oncology clinical research to individuals who for any number of cultural and socioeconomic reasons don't traditionally have access to this kind of treatment."

Supporting this program and helping to conduct the trials will be the Norris Cancer Institute at the University of Southern California and University of California San Francisco Cancer Center. Also participating is the RAND ...