Message From the Administrator
Greetings and welcome to the Spring 2006 edition
of “Together We Can,” the newsletter
of the Joan Karnell Cancer Center at Pennsylvania
Hospital. This issue focuses on clinical trials.
Clinical trials are research studies in which
people help doctors find ways to improve health
and cancer care. Each study tries to answer scientific
questions and to find better ways to prevent,
diagnose or treat cancer.
A clinical trial is one of the final stages
of a long and careful cancer research process.
Studies are done with cancer patients to find
out whether promising approaches to cancer prevention,
diagnosis and treatment are safe and effective.
Only you can make the decision about whether
or not to participate in a clinical trial. Talk
about clinical trials with your doctor and/or
nurse, family members and friends to help determine
what is right for you.
The importance of clinical trials and some of
the remarkable outcomes of recent trials are
clear in the following excerpt from The Nation's
Investment in Cancer Research, by Andrew C. von
Eschenbach, MD, Director of the National Cancer
Institute:
“Exponential advances in cancer research
are defining, with everincreasing specificity,
the many genetic, molecular, and cellular events
that influence the cancer process. We now understand
cancer as an ongoing process that can be interrupted
at many stages from susceptibility to initiation
to disease progression. We are translating this
new knowledge into innovative, evidence-based
strategies to prevent cancer from developing,
eliminate it early when it does occur, and modulate
its devastating effects.”
The Joan Karnell Cancer Center has recently
chosen to participate in TrialCheck, an online
service for cancer patients and their families
that helps search for clinical trials specific
to their diagnosis. We invite you to log on to our
web site and learn more about this useful
tool in the ongoing fight against cancer.
Sincerely,
Mary Pat Lynch, CRNP, MSN, AOCN
Administrator, Joan Karnell Cancer Center
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