Stroger Hospital of Cook County (SHCC) MU-NCORP

John H. Stroger Jr, Hospital of Cook County (SHCC) in Chicago, Illinois is the major tertiary care site for the Cook County Health and Hospital System. The majority of cancer cases are from urban populations and are predominantly African American. The SHCC NCORP plans to continue to strengthen and improve coordinated care and clinical research for patients through participation in NCTN programs. The SHCC NCORP will continue to foster relationships with current cancer research bases to facilitate broad and improved participation in cancer control, prevention, and care delivery research for breast, lung, prostate, gastrointestinal, brain, hematologic, head and neck, and gynecologic cancers; facilitate transfer of state-of-the-art quality oncology care and new technology to patients in their own communities, through participation in NCI-approved clinical trials; focus on prevention, control and survivorship as methods for reducing cancer incidence, morbidity and mortality; encourage multidisciplinary cancer care and integrated research at the local level; participate in cancer care delivery research which accrue to trials relevant to process improvement and implementation activities by coordinating the existing infrastructural features of the Cook County Health & Hospitals System and CountyCare’s Managed Care Community Network; continue to be a source of annotated tissue and blood samples for translational research projects such as the Early Onset Malignancy Initiative and the Patient Derived Xenograft project; continue scientific activity at the research base level by chairing an ECOG group-wide cancer control study concerning reproductive issues of female cancer patients that were conceived, designed, and initiated by the SHCC NCORP; and increase participation in symptom science research.