NCCN News
Journal: Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (2020)

IBM, American Cancer Society (ACS), NCCN, and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) announced a new alliance to help improve access to highquality cancer care and treatment in Sub-Saharan Africa called Allied Against Cancer.The Alliance will support a network of African oncology experts and technical assistance partners to help improve the quality of cancer care, including collaborating closely with the African Cancer Coalition to establish priorities and execute these initiatives locally.There are .800,000new cancer cases each year in Sub-Saharan Africa, and incidence is projected to double by 2040.And as these countries address the growing cancer epidemic, data and emerging technologies can play a significant role in cancer treatment control and care.More affordable cancer treatments and strong systems for their delivery are crucial to help improve patient survival.To address gaps in access to cancer medicines, ACS and CHAI teamed up in 2016 to bring lower prices for 16 common chemotherapy drugs to a half-dozen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.And top American oncologists have supported the African Cancer Coalition-comprising 110 African oncologists representing 34 hospitals from 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa-to adapt cancer treatment guidelines for use in African hospitals.The African Cancer Coalition, working with experts from NCCN, adapted the 46 NCCN Guidelines and NCCN Framework for Resource Stratification of NCCN Guidelines (NCCN Framework) to create the NCCN Harmonized Guidelines for Sub-Saharan Africa specifically to be used by oncologists across Sub-Saharan Africa.These guidelines have been endorsed by leading cancer centers or health ministries in 6 countries to date.IBM then developed an online tool called Cancer Guidelines Navigator to provide African oncology professionals with interactive access to the NCCN Harmonized Guidelines for Sub-Saharan Africa at no charge.Oncologists based in Sub-Saharan Africa can input a clinical description for a patient with cancer 1 -such as tumor type, tumor stage, biomarker status, and prior treatments-into the online tool.The Cancer Guidelines Navigator then points the user to relevant treatment options input from the NCCN Harmonized Guidelines.At this time, the tool includes NCCN Harmonized Guidelines for cervical cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and Kaposi sarcoma.IBM also helped transform the ACS ChemoSafe Facility Assessment Tool-from an Excel-based document to an interactive, easy-to-use mobile application-to scale the program's goal of improving the safety and quality for chemotherapy handling in cancer centers.This tool, which is accessible at no cost on iOS or Android mobile phones or tablets, allows healthcare workers to review the safety of hazardous drugs at each location where they may be handled in their healthcare facility, including the pharmacy receiving, treatment, 1 Cancer Guidelines Navigator does not require any patient identifiable information or protected health information (PHI) and is not connected to a hospital's electronic medical record (EMR) system.