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.