Helen F. Graham Cancer Center at Christiana Care receives $2.8M to extend cancer research

The Helen F. Graham Cancer Center at Christiana Care is the recipient of $2.8 million from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, to expand cancer research.

The funding is part of $80 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) awarded the 16 members of the NCI Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP) and supports an additional 14 new network sites.

The Helen F. Graham Cancer Center will use the funding to expand its community outreach programs, improve health care disparities, leverage information technology to benefit patient safety and enhance survivorship and palliative care. The award will also promote smoking cessation among cancer survivors and boost genetic counseling and breast cancer research.

The NCCCP is a network of community-hospital cancer centers working to provide research-based cancer care spanning the full cancer continuum – from prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment and survivorship through end-of-life care. The program, designed as a community-based platform, supports basic, clinical and population-based research initiatives.

"The continued funding of the NCCCP demonstrates the success that this network has brought to patients in their community cancer centers," says Nicholas J. Petrelli, M.D., Bank of America Endowed medical director of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center at Christiana Care. "We are proud to be part of this elite group of cancer centers across the country as we continue to make progress in all aspects of cancer care."