Cancer Research

The goal of the Bay Area Tumor Institute is to provide cancer patients and high-risk populations in the East Bay with the most advanced and promising forms of cancer therapy and cancer prevention being offered in the United States and abroad. Such care is only provided via National Cancer Institute-approved cancer clinical research programs.

Lisa Bailey, MD, FACS
Breast Surgeon
Principal Investigator
BATI-NCORP

The Bay Area Tumor Institute is one of 32 National Cancer Institute-approved, community-based clinical research programs authorized to participate in cancer research providing investigational treatments to cancer patients in the community setting. Research is conducted using nationally designed clinical trials that offer cancer patients and “high risk” populations opportunities to participate in therapeutic, cancer care delivery, prevention, and symptom management research.

NCI - Community Oncology Research Program

Types of BATI-NCORP Trials

Cancer Treatment Trials

Since 1979 the Bay Area Tumor Institute’s clinical research program has enabled East Bay physicians and more than 2,500 adult and pediatric cancer patients to participate in research studies designed to identify treatments that are more effective than the currently accepted standards of practice. Participating physicians follow National Cancer Institute approved “clinical trials,” which prescribe precise treatment regimens utilizing the most advanced forms of molecularly targeted gene therapy, immunotherapy, chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

The Bay Area Tumor Institute provides medical leadership, data management, and organizational services to this research program. The Institute also distributes anti-cancer drugs to participating physicians, organizes the East Bay Hospitals’ Institutional Review Board, and conducts seminars on advances in cancer research.

Cancer Care Delivery Research Trials

Cancer Care Delivery Research (CCDR) encompasses a multidisciplinary field of scientific investigation. It examines how social factors, financing systems, organizational structures and processes, health technologies, healthcare provider and individual behaviors affect cancer outcomes, access to and quality of care, cancer care costs, and the health and well-being of cancer patients and survivors.

Lili Wang, MD
Section Chair, Oncology/Hematology Program
Contra Costa Regional Medical Center

Principal Investigator
BATI-NCORP Cancer Care Delivery Research

Cancer care delivery research within NCORP focuses on diverse and multi-level factors (e.g. social, financing systems, process, technology, and others) that affect access to and quality of care in the community. The BATI-NCORP will bring this new knowledge into clinical trials conducted in the community where most patients receive their care. The NCORP network will identify and evaluate the critically needed interventions that reduce cancer risk and incidence, enhance cancer patients’ quality of life, and increase access to clinical trials and cancer care delivery research for minority, rural, and other underserved patient populations.

Cancer Disparities Research and Minority Populations

Cancer disparities research focuses on inconsistencies in clinical trial outcomes and cancer care delivery related to the most serious, prevalent cancers and cancer-related problems which disproportionately affect racial/ethnic minorities and underserved populations. It includes studies to enhance participation of racial/ethnic minorities and the underserved in clinical trials; address determinants of disparities (for example, social and health care system factors, co-morbidities, and genomics); and evaluate differential outcomes in minority/underserved populations.

Cancer Prevention Trials

The BATI-NCORP (National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program) offers patients the opportunity to participate in trials of new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. Equally important will be efforts to discover methods to improve quality of life, reduce recurrence, optimize symptom reduction, eliminate over- and under-diagnosis, and manage pre-cancerous lesions by utilizing advanced imaging and genetic tools.

Brenda Shank, MD, PhD
Past-Chairman, Department of Radiation Oncology
Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York, New York

Clinical Professor, Radiation Oncology Department
UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco

Cancer prevention is the action taken to lower the chance of getting cancer. By preventing cancer, the number of new cases of cancer in a group or population is reduced, reducing the number of deaths caused by cancer.

Cancer Symptom Management Trials

Symptom management is care given to improve the quality of life of patients who have a serious or life-threatening disease. The goal of symptom management is to prevent or treat as early as possible the symptoms of a disease, side effects caused by treatment of a disease, and psychological, social, and spiritual problems related to a disease or its treatment. Also called comfort care, palliative care, and supportive care.

Currently Active Trials

The list of currently available Cancer Trials available to the Bay Area Tumor Institute can be found in Protocol Fast Facts.

Participating Institutions

Research Groups

Eligible cancer patients can participate in the clinical research projects of the following NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) research groups:

Download the Bay Area Tumor Institute Investigator Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) Policy (pdf).