On the afternoon of August 15th, a group of representatives headed by Professor Joan Goldberg, CEO of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) visited FUSCC to discuss the possibility of future collaboration in breast cancer clinical studies. The group also included Elaine Junio, CFO of NSABP; Professor Joseph Purvis, Senior Consultant of NSABP; Arthur Cannon, Director of Scientific Alliances of Roche; Martin Dik Kwong Eng and Roland Regino, Consultant of NSABP.

The NSABP is a clinical trials cooperative group supported since its inception in 1958 by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The NSABP has a long history of designing and conducting clinical trials that have changed the way breast cancer is treated, and, more recently, prevented. It was the NSABP's breast cancer studies that led to the establishment of lumpectomy plus radiation over radical mastectomy as the standard surgical treatment for breast cancer. The NSABP was also the first to demonstrate that adjuvant therapy could alter the natural history of breast cancer, increasing survival rates, and the first to demonstrate on a large scale the preventive effects of the drug tamoxifen in breast cancer. Since its beginning the NSABP has enrolled more than 110,000 women and men in clinical trials in breast and colorectal cancer. The NSABP is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and have research sites at nearly 1,000 major medical centers, university hospitals, large oncology practice groups, and health maintenance organizations in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Australia, and Ireland. At those sites and their satellites, more than 5,000 physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals conduct NSABP treatment and prevention trials. Their presence at local hospitals and medical facilities means that state-of-the-art clinical trials can be provided to patients near their homes.

Professor Xichun Hu of the Department of Oncology, Professor Zhonghua Wang, Associate Professor Junjie Li, Doctor Wenjia Zuo and Nurse Ying Zhou of the Department of Breast Surgery welcomed the representatives to our hospital. During the meeting, Professor Joan Goldberg first introduced the history and structure of the NSABP, then, Dr. Wenjia Zuo gave an introduction of the Department of Breast Surgery and the clinical trials being conducted at our institute. Afterwards, the attendees of the meeting discussed the differences between how clinical studies are approved of and conducted in China and abroad. Professor Xichun Hu pointed out that there will be hurdles that we need to overcome in order to incorporate Chinese institutions into NSABP sponsored studies, and Professor Goldberg replied that the NSABP is willing to learn more about the procedures in China and hopes to see future cooperation between the NSABP and FUSCC