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MUSC, Regional Cancer Center join national surgical project In a joint announcement, MUSC’s Hollings Cancer Center and Carolina Regional Cancer Center (CRCC) in Myrtle Beach announced that CRCC has been approved as a satellite member of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP). CRCC affiliate membership was reviewed and accepted through its affiliation with MUSC Hollings Cancer Center.   NSABP is a clinical trials cooperative group supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). For almost 50 years, the NSABP has had a history of designing and conducting clinical trials that have changed the way breast cancer is treated and prevented. NSABP’s breast cancer studies led to the establishment of lumpectomy plus radiation versus  radical mastectomy as the standard surgical treatment for breast cancer.   NSABP also was the first to demonstrate that adjuvant therapy could alter the natural history of breast cancer and increase survival rates, and the first to demonstrate on a large scale the preventive effects of the drugs tamoxifen and raloxifene in breast cancer. (Adjuvant therapy is an additional treatment that usually is given after surgery where all detectable disease has been removed, but where there remains a statistical risk of relapse due to occult disease—as is the case with breast cancer where radiation therapy will be given following surgery.)   “Our affiliate membership into the NSABP will allow us to provide our patients an additional treatment option of participating in national phase II or phase III cooperative group trials,” said Steve Bass, M.D.,  CRCC’s medical director. “Our affiliation in March 2006 with MUSC Hollings Cancer Center is beginning to bear fruit so we can better serve our patients.”   This will provide area patients the ability to enroll clinical trials investigating new therapies for breast and colorectal cancer in Horry County.   Surgical Associates plans to work closely with CRCC in the coordination and conducting of clinical trials.   “We plan to work with CRCC in conducting prospective (prior to patient treatment) tumor boards for our cancer patients,” said Mike Ellis, M.D., of Surgical Associates. “These tumor boards will be conducted with other area physicians and specialists from MUSC to provide the best care and treatment options for our patients.”       CRCC and MUSC Hollings Cancer Center are continuing their joint efforts to broaden the local availability of advanced cancer treatments.     Friday, Oct. 6, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.