On the eve of World Cancer Day 2023, the theme of which this year is “Close the care gap”, the McPeak-Sirois Group reiterates how important it is for everyone affected by breast cancer to have access to clinical research, regardless of where they live. Living in a city or outside major urban centers should not be a determining factor for access to innovative treatments.
It is with this objective in mind that in 2017, the Group launched the Programme Accès-recherche Dr André-Robidoux, made possible thanks to the financial support of the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation. As of January 2023, this innovative program has enabled centers on the Island of Montreal, the Eastern Townships, Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean and Center of the Montérégie to join those from Montreal and Quebec.
With its ten members[1], the Group offers great potential for recruiting patients across the province. This has significant appeal for clinical research sponsors and results in having more trials available, in particular in the health care programs of regional hospitals.
This is how more than forty clinical studies were started as a consortium in partnership with pharmaceutical companies and international collaborative groups, which led to the inclusion of more than 700 Quebecers under protocol to this day.
The Group also acts as a catalyst to support collaboration between hospital centers across Quebec working together to make clinical research accessible to as many patients as possible. It is this unique collaboration that has allowed the Group to become, in just a few years, one of the largest clinical research consortiums in breast cancer in Canada.
In 2023, the Group will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that all people affected by breast cancer in the province, regardless of where they live, have increased access to innovative therapies improving their health and quality of life through of clinical trials.
[1] The Jewish General Hospital of the du CIUSSS for West-Central Montreal, the CHU de Québec – Université Laval, the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), the CIUSSS-de-l’Est-de-l’Ile-de-Montréal – Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke, the CIUSSS Montreal West Island–St-Mary’s Hospital Center, the CISSS de la Montérégie-Centre – Hôpital Charles-Le Moyne, the CIUSSS du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean – Hôpital de Chicoutimi, the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal – Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur-de-Montréal