WRAMC Cancer Care Program
WRAMC offers patients access to leading-edge treatments and participation in some of the most progressive cancer trials available.
While effective in many cases, radiation and chemotherapy also can have negative effects on patients, killing healthy cells and causing symptoms such as pain, nausea and fatigue.
Targeted Treatments for Cancer
The Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) cancer care program includes medical, surgical and radiation oncologists who specialize in areas including pediatric, gynecologic, prostate and breast cancers. Program staff are working to create and test targeted cancer treatments designed be more effective in fighting and preventing recurrence of the disease.
Targeted cancer therapies use drugs to interfere with specific molecules involved in carcinogenesis and tumor growth. They focus on molecular and cellular changes unique to cancer. This specificity could render the treatments less harmful to normal cells.
Expansive Clinical Trial Network
Center researchers have a unique capability to actually test these and other potential cancer therapies. WRAMC is a main member of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB), a national clinical research group sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.
CALGB is a network of 29 university medical centers, 225 community hospitals and more than 3,000 oncology specialists who collaborate on clinical research studies and new therapies for cancer.
Surgeons and radiation oncologists at Walter Reed are actively involved in conducting CALGB trials, which enable patients to receive some of the newest treatments available. Physicians at Walter Reed are able to facilitate patient enrollment in some of the most progressive cancer trials currently being conducted throughout the CALGB network.