Abstract P5-16-01: Documenting and sharing breast cancer knowledge from National Cancer Institute designated comprehensive cancer centers (NCI-CCCs) with community oncologists
Authors: Kalra M , Karuturi M , Tripathy D , Jankowitz R , McCann K , Brufsky A , Hurvitz S , Bogler O , Housri S , Housri N 
Published: February 2018

Introduction:Tumor boards (TB) at National Cancer Institute Designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers (NCI-CCC) are an important source of multidisciplinary education. Unfortunately, expert knowledge from NCI-CCCs is not systematically documented and made accessible to oncologists in the community. This represents a lost opportunity to capture and share clinical expertise that can impact patient care in community centers. Using an online oncologist-only social network, we sought to demonstrate the feasibility of systematically documenting expert insights from TBs and department conferences at NCI-CCCs in order to expand their reach and provide educational benefit to the greater oncology community.

Methods: A pilot program was developed at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) to design a process in which discussions at departmental breast cancer conferences would be distilled down to clinical questions and answers (Q&A) and posted on theMednet.org, an online social Q&A website of over 3,800 US oncologists. An educational breast cancer conference was selected during a site visit. A faculty member was selected to distil discussions about patient management from the selected conference into a question that addressed the clinical situation being discussed. After the question was posted, the oncologist leading the discussion answered the question on theMednet. The Q&A was then indexed and stored for easy search retrieval and disseminated in a weekly newsletter to all registered medical oncologists. A detailed manual was created to document operating procedures for implementation at additional institutions.

Results: After developing the process at MDACC, the program was expanded to 2 additional NCI-CCCs- University of Pittsburgh (UPMC) and UCLA. The educational breast cancer conferences selected varied by site and were the new patient planning conference at MDACC, tumor board at UPMC, and multidisciplinary clinic at UCLA. The most significant factor for success was involvement of one faculty member who regularly identified educational questions and additional faculty who posted their answers. Between December 2016 and May 2017, 17 answers to 17 questions were posted and shared with over 1,200 medical oncologists via an email newsletter. All questions were focused on topics not answered by NCCN or ASCO guidelines. The majority of questions focused on management decisions around chemotherapy and endocrine therapy. Answers were viewed by 339 oncologists at 260 institutions in 47 states. This included 190 community practices and 70 academic medical centers.

Conclusion: We developed a process of capturing and sharing expert knowledge at NCI-CCC breast cancer conferences on questions not answered by current guidelines. These discussions are otherwise not documented or shared outside of academic centers. By translating discussions into actionable Q&A on an online oncologist network, we made them easily accessible to oncologists at nearly 200 community practices. Future efforts will be aimed at implementing the program into the breast cancer programs at additional NCI-CCCs.

Citation Format: Kalra M, Karuturi M, Tripathy D, Jankowitz R, McCann K, Brufsky A, Hurvitz S, Bogler O, Housri S, Housri N. Documenting and sharing breast cancer knowledge from National Cancer Institute designated comprehensive cancer centers (NCI-CCCs) with community oncologists [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2017 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-16-01.