The NSMC Cancer Center offers many opportunities for patients in the North Shore community to participate in the latest cutting-edge research. Clinical trials are studies done by researchers to test the safety and effectiveness of new treatments, procedures or methods of disease prevention. Clinical trials are a necessary step in the process of bringing new advances to health care. They often provide patients with an opportunity to receive a new treatment that might otherwise be unavailable outside of a trial setting.

The NSMC Cancer Center has a ten-year history of conducting clinical trials. These trials are written and sponsored by national and international experts from the National Cancer Institute and pharmaceutical companies. The NSMC Cancer Center also enjoys a special affiliation with Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare, a collaboration of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. These relationships enable our team to offer our community the latest investigational treatments available in breast, lung, colon and other cancers, as well as clinical trials in cancer prevention.

The NSMC Cancer Center has established a Cancer Registry, which enables it to collect demographics, treatment and the lifetime follow-up history of cancer patients. The Registry makes an important contribution both locally and nationally, to research and the accumulation of knowledge for cancer treatment. To preserve patient confidentiality, the NSMC Cancer Center does not release individual patient identifiers to unauthorized individuals.

Information from the Cancer Registry is available to our medical administration to assist them in identifying services for cancer patients and their families. It also enables physicians caring for cancer patients to compare their standard of care with national trends. Data is submitted to the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) of the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons. The NCDB was developed to collect data from all cancer registries in approved cancer programs across the United States, allowing analysis of national treads with the database at the individual hospital.

Our patients benefit from the Cancer Registry through lifetime follow-up. Lifetime follow-up can serve as a reminder to physicians and patients that they require regular follow-up of their cancer even when active cancer treatment is completed. Certified Cancer Registrars staff the Cancer Registry. More information on the Cancer Registry is available through the National Cancer Registrars Association at www.ncra-usa.org.