THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY CLINICAL ONCOLOGY PROGRAM IN LARGE-SCALE TRIALS - THE CASE OF THE BREAST-CANCER PREVENTION TRIAL

Clinical trials are an important means to assess and access developing health-care technology. The Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP ) is a national clinical trials network sponsored by the National Canc er Institute and designed to extend the very latest cancer treatment a nd prevention and control therapies to the community setting where the majority of patients receive care. This paper describes the ability o f the CCOP to contribute patients to the Breast Cancer Prevention Tria l (BCPT), one of the United States' first large-scale chemoprevention clinical trials. Important organizational and environmental factors af fecting performance illustrate the potential of community-based organi zations to contribute to large-scale prevention trials.