Clinical Research Infrastructure
The Neuro-Oncology Branch (NOB) has gone from a nonexistent program to one of the larger academic-based brain tumor programs in the country. In 1999, just prior to Dr. Fine’s arrival, NCI saw approximately 10 primary brain tumor patients per year. We now see more than 500 new primary brain tumor patients per year and more than 2,000 follow-up patients per year.
This expansion in patient numbers was enabled by the rigorous and ambitious building of a primary neuro-oncology clinical care/research team, and establishing an NIH-wide multidisciplinary Brain Tumor Clinic with active participation from four different NCI Branches, three different NIH Institutes, and five different Clinical Center Programs (neuroradiology, psychiatry, pain and palliation, rehabilitation medicine, social work).
We have also established a robust neuro-oncology consultation service, in which local/regional and distant patients are seen and followed at NIH. Furthermore, we have created one of the few organized neuro-oncology fellowship-training programs in the United States.
Finally, through extensive collaborations established with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, as well as through the translational science being generated in the NOB laboratory, we have been able to create and activate more than 40 clinical trials within NOB. This large clinical patient population and large number of available clinical trials allow us to accrue between 200–250 glioma patients per year to clinical trials.