Academic-Community Partnerships Bringing Cancer Care to Patients

Collaborations between academic and community cancer centers enhance access to care, with success in acute myeloid leukemia and precision oncology.

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Community cancer centers provide a crucial service, bringing care to where patients are located and making care accessible and equitable for underserved and rural populations. Two posters presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting highlighted successes of implementing services performed at academic centers in the community setting.

Management of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has been moving toward more collaboration between academic and community cancer centers, particularly for high-dose cytarabine (HiDAC) consolidation, and the first poster evaluated a program between an institution and community cancer centers.1 “This [collaboration] helps alleviate the financial burden for patients traveling long distances for care and promotes better opportunities for local family support,” the authors wrote.

A total of 34 patients received HiDAC on site with Wellstar MCG (WMCG), and 14 received it off site (non-WMCG). The median travel distance for the WMCG group was 85.8 miles (range, 3-476) compared with 80.2 miles (range, 19-219) for the non-WMCG group. The median age at first HiDAC infusion was 48.8 years for the WMCG group and 44.8 years for the non-WMCG group.

Additionally, the researchers found:

• Readmissions for infection occurred less frequently among the non-WMCG patients (35.7% vs 47.1%)
• There was no early mortality within 3 months observed in either group
• Fewer WMCG patients received post-HiDAC hematopoietic stem cell transplant (35.3%) compared with non-WMCG patients (61.5%)

Ultimately, the post-HiDAC outcomes were comparable between the institution and the collaborating community cancer centers, the researchers wrote.

“The co-management approach may help reduce travel burden to and from academic centers for follow-up labs without negatively impacting outcomes,” they concluded. “This approach could be explored further in clinical trials involving AML HiDAC consolidation to alleviate the financial and travel burden on participating patients.”

The second poster evaluated a program implementing an academic precision oncology (PO) service in community practice.2 Precision oncology is challenging to implement in the community due to the lack of resources to order and interpret the results, the authors explained. The program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill partnered with a community site in 2023 to optimize clinical workflows and document review of results for a precision oncology program.

A total of 185 patients with solid tumors were included and placed into either the historical cohort (n = 109) or the interventional cohort (n = 76) based on if their cancer became advanced/metastatic before or after the service was implemented on January 1, 2023, according to the retrospective review of the program. Before the implementation, the rate of next-generation sequencing (NGS) was 40.4%, increasing to 57.9% after (P = .0192), and the rate of testing within 30 days of disease being diagnosed as advanced or metastatic improved from 21.1% to 36.8% (P = .0187).

In the historical cohort, the median time from the first clinic visit to receiving results was 20.5 days, which dropped to 10.5% in the interventional cohort.

“Utilization of a PO program at an academic hub to support NGS testing at a community site resulted in increased testing rates and more timely access to results in advanced cancer patients,” the researchers concluded. “Although limited by sample size, the data emphasize a continued need for infrastructure to support the application of PO in community settings."

References

1. Dontu S, Doss S, Syam M, et al. Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) post-high-dose cytarabine (HiDAC) outcomes: academic versus collaborating community cancer centers. Presented at: ASCO 2025; May 30-June 3, 2025; Chicago, Illinois. Abstract e18538.

2. Moy J, Richardson J, Patel S, Cipriani A. Implementation of an academic precision oncology service in a community setting. Presented at: ASCO 2025; May 30-June 3, 2025; Chicago, Illinois. Abstract 1531.