Stephenson Cancer Center Joins Elite Precision Medicine Alliance in Cancer Care

The Stephenson Cancer Center has joined the prestigious Oncology Research Information Exchange Network (ORIEN), a personalized medicine consortium that includes of some of the nation’s leading cancer centers and that aims to develop more personalized and effective treatments for cancer.

“Precision medicine is a driving force behind cancer care and research,” said Kathleen Moore, MD, associate director of clinical research at the Stephenson Cancer Center. “The ability to match patients with targeted trials based on the individual molecular profile of their tumor is the future of cancer care.”

ORIEN allows clinicians and researchers at member centers to leverage multiple data sources and match patients to promising new cancer treatments targeted specifically to a patient’s tumor.

Partner centers use a common protocol, known as Total Cancer Care®, to track the molecular, clinical, and epidemiological data of consenting patients throughout their lifetimes. The resulting database of consenting patients is used by researchers to better understand cancer at the molecular level. With over 200,000 participating patients, ORIEN is one of the world’s largest clinically annotated cancer tissue repositories.

“Our partnership with other leading cancer centers through the ORIEN network, when coupled with the Stephenson Cancer Center’s national leadership in National Cancer Institute (NCI)-sponsored clinical research, means that Oklahomans will have more opportunities to access therapies tailored for their individual cancers,” said Robert Mannel, MD, director of the Stephenson Cancer Center.

The Stephenson Cancer Center currently leads the nation in the number of patients participating in clinical trials sponsored by the NCI’s National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN), the world’s premier network for developing and conducting clinical trials to advance new cancer therapies. Mannel currently serves as the chair of NRG Oncology, the largest organizational arm of the NCTN.

There are currently 18 ORIEN members, including the some of the nation’s top cancer centers like the Moffit Cancer Center, The James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University, and City of Hope.