Publications by authors named "Joan McClure"

Article Synopsis
  • - Over 14 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million cancer deaths occur globally each year, with a significant concentration in low- and middle-income countries, which face severe healthcare resource disparities.
  • - The United States and Canada bear only 10% of the global disease burden but have 37% of the health workforce and over 50% of health finances, while the African region struggles with 24% of the disease burden but has only 3% of health workers and less than 1% of financial resources.
  • - The NCCN has created a framework for adapting cancer care guidelines based on available resources, known as the NCCN Framework for Resource Stratification, which categorizes healthcare environments to improve cancer treatment
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Much has changed in the treatment of cancer since the first NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) were rolled out for 8 different tumor types in November 1996. NCCN Guidelines now include involved algorithms often containing multiple treatment alternatives and detailed pathways of care that depend on more-specific patient characteristics and molecular tumor diagnostics. With 47 different individual NCCN panels, all members of the cancer care team are now better informed than ever to guide patients through the often complex decision-making required to improve the odds of successful outcomes.

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Defining treatment-susceptible or -resistant populations of patients with cancer through the use of genetically defined biomarkers has revolutionized cancer care in recent years for some disease/patient groups. Research continues to show that histologically defined diseases are diverse in their expression of unique mutations or other genetic alterations, however, which presents opportunities for the development of personalized cancer treatments, but increased difficulty in testing these therapies, because potential patient populations are divided into ever smaller numbers. To address some of the growing challenges in biomarker development and clinical trial design, NCCN assembled a group of experts across specialties and solid tumor disease types to begin to define the problems and to consider alternate ways of designing clinical trials in the era of multiple biomarkers and targeted therapies.

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Context: The rapid development of commercial biomarker tests for oncology indications has led to confusion about which tests are clinically indicated for oncology care. By consolidating biomarker testing information recommended within National Comprehensive Cancer Network Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines), the NCCN Biomarkers Compendium aims to ensure that patients have access to appropriate biomarker testing based on the evaluations and recommendations of the expert NCCN panel members.

Objectives: To present the recently launched NCCN Biomarkers Compendium.

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The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) are evidence- and consensus-based clinical practice guidelines addressing malignancies that affect more than 97% of all patients with cancer in the United States. The NCCN Guidelines are used extensively in the United States and globally. Use of the guidelines outside the United States has driven the need to adapt the guidelines based on local, regional, or national resources.

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These NCCN Guidelines Insights focus on recent recommendations for cervical cancer screening and management of abnormal screening tests. When the NCCN Panel convened to update the NCCN Guidelines for Cervical Cancer Screening, they decided to adopt and endorse guidelines from other organizations to avoid duplication of effort. Therefore, in July 2013, after review and validation of consensus guidelines from the American Cancer Society, American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, and American Society for Clinical Pathology, the NCCN Guidelines for Cervical Cancer Screening were discontinued.

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The NCCN developed clinical practice guidelines for oncology that set the standard of cancer care in the United States. Because of wide acceptance of, need for, and interest in standardized treatment practices across the world, NCCN launched initiatives to help international groups adapt these guidelines. This article describes the initiative in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

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This NCCN Task Force Report describes the management of dermatologic and ocular toxicities that occur in patients treated with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors. Task force members are from NCCN member institutions and include oncologists, dermatologists, an ophthalmologist, and a mid-level oncology provider. This report describes commonly used therapies that the task force agreed are appropriate standards of care for dermatologic and ophthalmologic toxicities associated with EGFR inhibitors, which generally are supported only by anecdotal evidence.

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Background: Studies of adherence to breast cancer guidelines have often focused on primary therapies, but concordance with other guideline recommendations has not been examined as extensively. This study assesses the knowledge and practice patterns of medical oncologists in the United States to inform education and quality improvement initiatives that can improve breast cancer care.

Methods: A survey containing case vignettes and related questions was developed to examine oncologists' clinical decision-making in evaluating and treating women with early breast cancer.

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Breast cancer is common in older women, and the segment of the U.S. population aged 65 years and older is growing rapidly.

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Purpose: The National Cancer Policy Board recommended the creation of quality measures and a national reporting system in 1999. Representatives from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) collaborated to create metrics suitable for national performance measurement.

Methods: Content and methodology experts nominated by ASCO and NCCN met to select and refine metrics for breast, colon, and rectal cancer based on National Initiative for Cancer Care Quality and NCCN measures and NCCN and ASCO guidelines.

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Guidelines are becoming increasingly important as potential tools in improving clinical decision making. Because oncology practice encompasses a large number of tumors and their variants and because each tumor is characterized by heterogeneous presentations and clinical evolutions, an oncology guidelines program must be large in scope. Oncology practice is slowly moving toward evidence-based status, but guideline developers still must rely on less than perfect information to achieve this scope.

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