Source: www.mcall.com
Author: Veronica Torrejón

The National Cancer Institute is plugging the Lehigh Valley directly into more of the nation’s most advanced cancer-fighting and research opportunities. The government’s top agency for cancer research has selected two of the region’s hospitals to receive grants totaling $3.8 million in federal stimulus funds. Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown and Salisbury Township and Geisinger Medical Center in Danville will join a national network of 30 community cancer centers in 22 states.

”The opportunity for the community is enormous,” said Dr. Gregory Harper, medical director of Lehigh Valley Health Network’s Breast Health Services. ”We now have access to the best there is and the best the National Cancer Institute has to offer.” Both hospitals will be able to participate in advanced genetic research studies and early-stage clinical trials available at major teaching hospitals in Philadelphia and New York, Harper said.

Previously, there were 16 community cancer center sites. The National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, is using $40 million in stimulus funds to expand the program, designed to reach rural areas, poor inner-city neighborhoods or any community outside a major academic medical center. Statistics indicate most cancer patients, as many as 85 percent, are diagnosed and get their initial treatment at community hospitals.

”It’s really about bringing cancer research closer to patients and patients closer to research,” said Frank Blanchard, spokesman for the contractor managing the program for the National Cancer Institute.

The program began in 2007. The idea is to link the cancer institute and community hospitals so they can provide advanced cancer care that they would then funnel to medically under-served populations. For Geisinger, which received a $1.7 million grant, that means expanding to nine rural underserved counties starting with communities in Schuylkill County, said Thomas Graves, vice president of cancer services for Geisinger Heath System.

In rural Schuylkill County, where 12 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty level, there are higher incidences of bladder and oral cancer, perhaps linked to tobacco use, Graves said. Geisinger would bring patient navigators to the county who would link patients with services at Geisinger. They would work with church pastors and other community leaders to screen and identify cancer patients. Eventually, Geisinger would expand to other rural counties.

”We envision putting patient navigators in all these communities,” Graves said. ”That’s how the rubber meets the road.”

Lehigh Valley Hospital would focus its outreach efforts on center city Allentown, which has a large Hispanic population facing economic, cultural and language barriers to health care, said Harper, who will serve as physician director for the program. Programs and services at the John and Dorothy Morgan Cancer Center at LVH-Cedar Crest would be available at LVH-Allentown.

LVH-Allentown already has clinics and support programs with bilingual staff who understand the community. Also, the clinics are connected with computerized health records. Those were among the reasons LVH was selected by the National Cancer Institute to be a community cancer center, Blanchard said. As part of LVH’s program –– funded by the $2.1 million grant from the cancer institute and with matching hospital funds –– as many as 14 new jobs will be created, Harper said. LVH will hire patient navigators, interpreters and financial counselors as well as nurses and nurse practitioners.

Early clinical trials and advanced cancer care programs will be open to the entire community — not just center city Allentown.

Lehigh Valley doctors will be able to participate in new research by collecting tissue specimens for a national repository. The research is focused on the genetics of cancer and the individual genetic makeup of patients. Ultimately the research could lead to treatments that are tailor-made for individual patients.

”It’s a long way from cutting out everything and giving everyone chemotherapy,” Harper said. ”It becomes a much more targeted approach.”

Programs at LVH and Geisinger are funded for two years and funding could be extended for another two years. In June 2011, the National Cancer Institute will have an open competition for other sites that could replace the original 16 community cancer centers. The idea is to maintain at least 30. But Harper wouldn’t be surprised if community cancer centers eventually become the national model for cancer care.

”I think this is the NCI’s vision for the future,” he said. ”We’re excited to be a part of it.”