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Research That Benefits You

Improve our knowledge to help people with cancer live longer.

How Cancer Research Benefits You

ChristianaCare’s cancer clinical trials program actively pursues today’s most promising studies for the prevention and treatment of cancer. When you join a cancer research study, you benefit from techniques and therapeutic advances that are at the vanguard of medical science.

At the same time, you are helping to improve our knowledge in ways that will help people with cancer live longer and enjoy a better quality of life.

The Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute enrolls seven times more patients in National Cancer Institute clinical trials than the national rate. We have received several national awards for our record-breaking success in enrolling patients in clinical trials. At any given time, we have at least 700 patients enrolled in as many as 130 different clinical trials. For our patients, this success means that they have access to the best treatments and procedures available to fight their type of cancer.

Translational Research: From Bench to Bedside

In 2009, the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute expanded to include wet labs and a new home for the Center for Translational Research, a partnership that includes the University of Delaware, Nemours / A.I. du Pont Hospital for Children, Rice University / BioScience Research Collaborative and the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, among others. This partnership is a powerful link that allows physicians and scientific researchers to work side-by-side, identifying needs of individual patients at the bedside, bringing those problems to the lab to explore solutions, and then returning to the bedside where those new solutions can be used to help the patient.

Translational research studies are extending the boundaries of what we know about cancer. The Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute is collecting human tissue samples to help scientists in their laboratories learn more about the growth and development of cancer. This expanding tissue-banking effort is one of only two such non-university-based programs in the country. Increased tissue procurement enhances the resources available for translational research studies that involve the application of basic science toward potential therapies.

Other program features include a monthly support group and access to new or investigational treatments through participation in industry-sponsored clinical trials.

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If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with cancer, you may find it helpful to seek emotional and psychological support.

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