Oncology news you can use: Read on!

accconnect
A bi-monthly e-newsletter from the Association of Community Cancer Centers
September 9 | 2009

A Push for Consensus in Healthcare Reform

Tonight President Obama delivers his healthcare address to a joint session of Congress, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has given the group of bipartisan committee members working on healthcare reform legislation until this morning to provide feedback to his own healthcare reform proposal. The Baucus proposal includes reductions in hospital and Part B provider payments to account for productivity gains and would replace the scheduled 21 percent cut in Medicare physician payment rates in 2010 with a 0.5 percent increase.

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Three ACCC Educational Projects with Your Needs in Mind

Have you taken advantage of ACCC's three new educational projects? Take your patient navigation program to the next level with ACCC's Cancer Care Patient Navigation: A Call to Action online resource. Develop and improve prostate-specific cancer services in your home community. And better understand emerging data and treatment strategies of multiple myeloma from a community practice perspective through a joint ACCC and Medscape Oncology educational offering.

New Toolkit Helps Expedite Clinical Trial Contract Negotiations

Would you like to shorten the time it takes to negotiate clinical trial contracts? The National Cancer Institute's START (Standard Terms of Agreement for Research Trial) clauses provide standardized legal language for key agreement elements common to most clinical trial agreements.

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NCI Plans to Expand Outreach through Community-based Research Programs

NCI recently announced plans to incorporate its community outreach and cancer information dissemination activities as a key component in all of the institute's community-based research programs, creating an enhanced National Outreach Network.

Read more from the NCI Cancer Bulletin.

New Patient Brochure on Palliative Care Offers Answers, Highlights Benefits

Palliative care improves a patient's quality of life by reducing pain and other distressing symptoms. This 14-page brochure from the National Institute of Nursing Research looks at who needs palliative care and when.

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FDA Approves Zevalin® Expanded Label as Part of First-Line Therapy in Treatment of Follicular Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals announced that Zevalin® (ibritumomab tiuxetan), a CD20-directed radiotherapeutic antibody, received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an expanded label for the treatment of patients with previously untreated follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), who achieve a partial or complete response to first-line chemotherapy. This new and expanded indication supplements the 2002 FDA approval of Zevalin as treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory, low-grade or follicular B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

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Virtual Tumor Board: Early Breast Cancer

The Oncotype DX Virtual Tumor Board web conference will examine controversial issues in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of patients with early stage breast cancer, including patients with a large tumor and with lymph node positive disease. Presented by Genomic Health, Inc., the virtual tumor board takes place September 22 and 24.

Click here to view invitation and register.