The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute Announce Groundbreaking Partnership to Accelerate Drug...( WHITE PLAINS N.Y. Oct. 9 /- In an...),Health

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Oct. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to increase access and participation in clinical trials among adult blood cancer patients, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute have launched a groundbreaking partnership, The Clinical Trial Center for Hematologic Malignancies.

This innovativecollaboration is a unique approach to making blood cancer clinical trials available to patients in their community so they can easily have access to the newest treatments for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

"The challenge of recruiting patients to participate in clinical trials is one of the greatest obstacles to getting new drugs approved," said Louis DeGennaro, Ph.D., the Society chief scientific officer. "In fact, less than 5 percent of adult cancer patients nationally participate in trials."

Other major barriers to recruiting patients into clinical trials include patients' reluctance to leave their own doctors and the requirement to travel to major cities outside of their communities to get treatments and participate in trials. Patients also often view trials as risky.

Cleveland Clinic is uniquely structured to work with the Society to overcome these hurdles. Taussig has 45 oncologists at its main campus and another 20 on staff throughout its regional hospitals in the Cleveland metropolitan area. Patients can easily participate in the center's clinical trials while still remaining with their own doctors. The ability to remain with their own doctors will also go a long way toward alleviating patients' fears about participating in the trials. As a result of the broad reach into the community, the clinic has access to a large volume of patients, so recruiting for clinical trials will be much easier. Patients will have access to promising new therapies and will receive far greater supervision under highly controlled conditions than they would under normal treatment circumstances.

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