HSC Feature Article -From Bench to Bedside (Barry Staver photo)

  By Cathleen Rineer-Garber, Communications and Publications Manager
(photo)-Research (photo credit - Barry Staver)

Hospitals, cancer physicians and scientists work together to deliver the highest level of care to patients across the state.

Everyday new cancer therapies are being developed and used to treat and cure cancer patients who, not that long ago, would have had little chance of survival. Unfortunately, until a few years ago, the newest and most effective treatments weren't always available to New Mexicans.

For physicians who specialize in treating cancer, this was a frustrating reality. A few years ago, Cheryl Willman, MD, Chief Executive Officer of the UNM Cancer Research and Treatment Center, and several of her colleagues, Kutub Khan, MD, President of Radiation Oncology Associates and Andrew Horvath, MD, President of Pathology Associates of Albuquerque and member of Presbyterian Healthcare Services board of directors, began to meet regularly to discuss strategies that would bring the newest and best cancer treatments to the state.

“We agreed that one of the best ways to improve the overall quality of cancer treatment in our state would be to increase the participation of New Mexicans in cancer clinical trials.” says Willman. This, she says, would help assure that all New Mexicans would have the latest cancer prevention agents and new treatments available to them.

Some of the most promising treatments and therapies for cancer are offered to participants in clinical trials, but because the process of opening and managing a clinical trial is cumbersome and complex, it would be difficult for many of the state's oncologists to participate. “We had to figure out how to build a network to assure that all New Mexicans would have access to cancer education and prevention programs and clinical treatment trials in their own communities and health care systems,” Willman added.

Realizing that every physician in the state shared the same goal—to help their patients beat cancer—Willman, Khan and Horvath came up with a novel idea. Rather than viewing one another as the competition, why not bring New Mexico's oncology community together to enable more New Mexicans to have access to clinical trials and better treatments.

With this simple, yet remarkable approach, the New Mexico Cancer Care Alliance was created in 2002. Today, the NMCCA is a partnership between Lovelace Sandia Health Systems, New Mexico Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe, UNM Health Sciences Center and UNM Cancer Research and Treatment Center, and more than 80 cancer treatment physicians in Bernalillo and Santa Fe counties. According to Willman, hospitals and physicians in Farmington and Las Cruces are also in the process of joining the NMCCA program.

“Our goal is to make it easier for cancer patients to participate in a clinical trial,” says Teresa Stewart, Executive Director of the NMCCA. According to Stewart, the Alliance centralizes the administrative and regulatory paperwork associated with participation in a clinical trial, which makes access to these studies greater for patients.

“Community-based physicians don't have the resources to dedicate to this complex process,” she says. “We remove the barriers so their patients can benefit from participation.” In 2005, the Alliance helped more than 150 New Mexicans participate in clinical trials addressing a variety of cancers including lung, brain, breast, colon and leukemia.

“The Alliance is an extremely unique organization whose sole purpose is to elevate the standard of care for the cancer patients of New Mexico,” says Victor V. Vigil, MD, a medical oncologist with Hematology Oncology Associates in Albuquerque. In addition to the centralizing the clinical trial process, the NMCCA has also opened the lines of communication among New Mexicos's cancer doctors.

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