FirstHealth Offering Smoking Cessation Clinical Trial
| Date Posted: 5/23/2013
PINEHURST – Celebrate National Cancer Survivors Day by quitting smoking and increasing your odds of becoming a cancer survivor. The Clinical Trials office at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital is participating in a tobacco-cessation clinical trial for cancer patients.
The treatment opportunity studies a quitline-based smoking-cessation treatment for patients receiving treatment for lung, breast, prostate, colorectal, bladder, head and neck, or cervical cancer. The study is being conducted in partnership with FirstHealth’s FirstQuit program.
“Our oncology team is very excited about this trial,” says Lori DeSpain, R.N., of FirstHealth Clinical Trials. “Once enrolled, patients who are trying to kick the habit are given the additional support, tools and attention to help be successful during their cancer treatments. Quitting smoking may improve response to cancer treatments by reducing chances of complications and reducing side effects of chemotherapy and radiation.”
Quitting smoking also lowers the risk of a cancer recurrence, reduces the risk of a tobacco-related cancer and can result in a longer survival after a cancer diagnosis.
To be eligible for the trial, participants must have one of the cancers listed above, have recently smoked tobacco and be willing to consider quitting smoking.
Charles Kuzma, M.D., a board certified medical oncologist with the FirstHealth Cancer Center, is the trial’s principal investigator.
The Southeast Cancer Control Consortium (SCCC) is a group of community oncologists, surgeons, radiation oncologists and urologists located in the southeastern United States who are committed to bringing cancer clinical trials to their communities. The clinical research department at FirstHealth works closely with SCCC to bring clinical trials to patients at FirstHealth.
FirstHealth research treatment opportunities are provided through support from the Reid Research Center. For more information on this and other clinical trials available at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, call (910) 715-2200 or visit FirstHealth’s clinical trials website at www.firsthealth.org/clinicaltrials.
