Contact: Phyllis Teitelbaum; 786-596-5671
Baptist Health South Florida is partnering with Tampa-based Moffitt Cancer Center, Florida’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, in a research study that may lead to individualized treatments for specific types of cancer.
Baptist Health has become a Total Cancer Care™ leadership institution in Moffitt’s Total Cancer Care™ consortium, and is the first healthcare organization in Miami-Dade, Broward or Monroe counties to participate in the research study.
“We’re honored to be chosen to partner with such a prestigious cancer research center on this important study,” said President and CEO of Baptist Health, Brian Keeley. “We hope this research may one day benefit not only our cancer patients, but cancer patients everywhere.”
Moffitt is a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a prestigious alliance of the country’s leading cancer centers.
Over the next five years, Baptist Health physicians will ask newly diagnosed cancer patients to enroll in the research study. If they agree, doctors will get patients’ medical histories and collect tissue samples from tumors that have been surgically removed. The tissue samples, along with clinical data (protected under federal privacy laws), will be sent to Moffitt to determine their unique genetic profiles or fingerprints. A tumor’s genetic makeup determines how someone will respond to treatment.
The data generated from analyzing the tumors will be incorporated into a huge database containing information on 100,000 or more cancer patients who are expected to participate in the Total Cancer Care™ study at selected medical facilities throughout the United States. The goal is to find drug treatments tailored to individual tumors, based on their genetic fingerprints. Patients in the research study may benefit by being identified for participation in clinical trials of new drugs that could help them.
“It’s known that patients with the same type of cancer don’t always respond to treatment in the same way,” said breast surgeon Robert Derhagopian, M.D., who is the research study’s principal investigator at Baptist Health. “A treatment may be highly effective for some people and fail to halt cancer in others. We’re eager to participate in this study because it will help researchers develop more effective drugs.”
Baptist Health South Florida provides cancer services to more than 6,000 patients each year and is the largest, faith-based, not-for-profit healthcare organization in the region. It includes Baptist, Baptist Children’s, South Miami, Doctors, Homestead and Mariners Hospitals, Baptist Cardiac & Vascular Institute and Baptist Outpatient Services. Baptist Health Foundation, the organization’s fundraising arm, supports services at all hospitals and facilities affiliated with Baptist Health.