CanCORS Research Process
The CanCORS Consortium provides a unique opportunity to examine care that is being
delivered to patients with lung and colorectal cancer in community settings in multiple
regions of the US, to identify variations in care, and to begin to understand the reasons
for these variations. By collecting and analyzing data from a large number of patients in
geographically diverse settings, we expect that the findings of this study will help
clinicians and policy-makers improve cancer care and the experiences of cancer
patients.
The CanCORS Consortium consists of seven Primary Data Collection and
Research (PDCR) sites and a Statistical Coordinating Center (SCC). Each PDCR site
identifies patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer or colorectal cancer for combined
population-based cohorts of 5,000 patients with each condition. These patients are being
followed prospectively for about 15 months.
Each PDCR site collects data about the care that the patients received during different
stages of illness (including diagnosis, treatment, surveillance for recurrent disease, and
palliation), as well as various clinical and patient-reported outcomes and information
about patient and provider preferences and behaviors. The primary data sources include
patients' medical records and patient surveys. These data are supplemented with cancer
registry data, provider surveys, caregiver surveys, publicly available datasets, and, at
some sites, surveys of health care organizations.
The SCC assists the PDCR sites in developing survey instruments and collecting
standardized core data across the individual research sites. It also serves as the
central repository for the analysis of pooled data.
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