Clinical Trials

Clinical trials are strictly controlled studies of new and emerging therapies. These studies test whether a new drug, prevention strategy or a new screening test is safe and effective in people.

Our staff conducts experimental studies, clinical trials and prevention studies, all of which gather critical information that will strengthen our ability to treat cancer, and better yet, prevent it. We can also provide patients with drugs and other treatment options that are not available elsewhere.

In 1983, the National Cancer Institute named Spartanburg Regional as one of 50 sites for a Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP). Today, the program at the Gibbs Cancer Center is called the Upstate Carolina CCOP and it remains one of the eight original programs, continuing to give area patients all the benefits of a major research hospital. The Upstate Carollina CCOP has been nationally recognized.

We are the only cancer center in South Carolina to have a direct affiliation with an NCI-designated facility - M. D. Anderson Cancer Center - allowing us to expand our research capabilities even further. For our patients, this means they have access to even more clinical expertise and to the latest drugs and experimental trials available.

Gibbs Cancer Center is also a part of the NCI Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP). NCCCP is a pilot program to test the concept of a national network of community cancer centers to expand cancer research and deliver the latest, most advanced cancer care to a greater number of Americans in the communities in which they live.

The pilot program is designed to encourage the collaboration of private-practice medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists, with close links to NCI research and to the network of 63 NCI-designated Cancer Centers principally based at large research universities.

For information about current cancer trials being conducted at the Gibbs Cancer Center, call the Upstate South Carolina CCOP at 800-486-5941.