A five-year, $1.7-million grant from the foundation will establish UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center Survivorship Program, a member of the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center of Excellence Network. The new program will build on the Jonsson center's two decades of survivorship research and put into place critical clinical programs to help cancer survivors transition into their disease-free lives, said Dr. Patricia Ganz, head of cancer prevention and control research at the Jonsson Cancer Center and director of the new survivorship center.
"This is a great opportunity for us to organize all of UCLA's existing survivorship programs and marry our research with new clinical programs that will allow us to coordinate follow-up care for cancer survivors," Ganz said. "Oncologists often have no idea what happens to patients when they finish treatment. Patients go back to their primary care providers and there are vital issues that need to be addressed that sometimes aren't communicated. Survivors often don't know what kind of surveillance and follow-up care they need to monitor for disease recurrence or any late effects that may result from their cancer treatment."
The formation of the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center of Excellence Network was announced today by LAF officials. The network is an invitation-only collaborative partnership among the LAF, National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer centers at leading medical institutions nationwide and their community affiliates. Working together, network member institutions will address topics such as critical survivorship research, new interventions and progress in insurance reimbursemen
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Contact: Kim Irwin
kirwin@mednet.ucla.edu
310-206-2805
University of California - Los Angeles
23-Mar-2006