The ETSU Cancer Center has recently become a member of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Affiliate Network (VICCAN).
This affiliation gives cancer patients local access to more medical research and clinical trials, which in the past were only accessible to those willing to visit Vanderbilt. VICCAN also gives more types of cancer patients, who could get no treatment locally, the opportunity to be treated in their community.
VICCAN will improve the Cancer Center’s research efforts, and it will give patients in the Tri-Cities access to phase II and phase III clinical trials, or research trials. Phase II trials demonstrate a certain drug’s effectiveness, while phase III compares chemotherapy with an experimental therapy.
“Our goal is to be able to offer all patients clinical trials,” said Chris Hale, clinical trial coordinator.
These trials will be available to all divisions of the Cancer Center, which includes hemotology, oncology, gynecological oncology and surgical oncology. The radiation oncologists with the Steve Seward Cancer Treatment Center within the Johnson City Medical Center’s Regional Cancer Center and the Quillen VA Medical Center will also have access to the trials.
VICCAN recruits patients quicker, which speeds up of the process of evaluating new treatments and helps to get effective treatments on the market sooner.
The affiliation with Vanderbilt will give the Cancer Center access to more research relating particularly the prevention and diagnosis of the disease.
There are only 12 centers within VICCAN in Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia.
“The ETSU Cancer Center is the only affiliate east of Knoxville,” Hale said.
The ETSU Cancer Center has been affiliated with VICCAN since November 2002. Vanderbilt has been supervising the Cancer Center since 1990, and recently offered them a membership in the program.For more information, call the Cancer Center at 439-6200.

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