(EDITOR’S NOTE: The following story originally appeared in The Grand Island Independent on April 20.)
GRAND ISLAND — Even more cutting-edge cancer research and clinical trials will soon be available to patients in Central Nebraska.
Dr. Sitki Copur, medical director of the St. Francis Cancer Treatment Center, has been appointed as an affiliate of the University of Nebraska Medical Center Eppley Cancer Institute as a lead investigator.
“This is a great opportunity for me, St. Francis, our patients and the Eppley Institute,” he said. “I’m very excited.”
Dr. Kenneth Cowan, director of the UNMC Eppley Institute, was in Grand Island on Thursday to welcome Copur onboard. The two men have been friends for 20 years and met when Cowan was Copur’s attending physician early in his medical career.
Eppley is a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center. There are only 61 such institutions in the U.S., and the Nebraska designation covers a five-state area from North Dakota to Texas, Cowan said.
Funding for such centers was established by the War on Cancer Act, which was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1971, he said. The National Cancer Institute strives to have one designated cancer center in every part of the country, so patients have better access to the best treatment possible, he said.
Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States, but the clinical trials funded through the National Cancer Institute have helped lead to 10 million cancer survivors in America, three times as many as could be found in 1971, Cowan said.
Research is necessary to determine what causes cancer, improve diagnosis and determine the best ways to treat specific types of cancer. The Eppley Institute is committed to clinical research, Cowan said, and the doctors there want patients to have access. In order to obtain that goal, the center is reaching out to doctors, such as Copur, across the region to do local clinical trials.
Copur has been associated with the Eppley Institute since 1996, a year after he joined the staff at St. Francis. He was named an associate professor with Eppley in 2006. He said the best cancer care involves trials and research, as is proven by the increasing numbers of survivors.
He’s excited to have more ammunition in the fight against cancer with this new affiliation with Eppley. Patients will have to travel less when they are ill to seek out leading cancer treatments now that additional clinical trials can be done in Grand Island, Copur said.
St. Francis will be the only facility to offer the clinical trials conducted at Eppley outside Omaha. This will significantly increase the number of trials that can be done and will raise the level of cancer-care options St. Francis can offer to Central Nebraskans, the men said.
According to St. Francis, the hospital’s cancer treatment center diagnoses and treats 500 to 700 new patients each year.
Cowan said the more research that can be done, the better. During the last 30 years, research has changed the way cancer therapies are administered. Rather than a standard “cocktail” for all cancers, doctors have developed treatments that can target a particular form of cancer with much more success and fewer side effects.
Copur’s focus is on solid tumors, particularly in the colon, and colon, breast and lung cancer are the most common types of cancer. However, patients with all types of the disease will be enrolled in the trials, he said.
He acknowledged that rural communities suffer because of their lack of universities or large cancer centers, making St. Francis’ affiliation with the Eppley Institute all the more important.
“This is a great advantage for the population here,” Copur said.