LSU Health receives Cancer-COVID registry grant

New Orleans — The National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health has awarded LSU Health New Orleans Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center a $147,000 supplement to its NCI Community Oncology Research Program grant to create the Louisiana Cancer-COVID-19 Registry with the Louisiana Department of Health.
“Because cancer patients are at increased risk for developing COVID-19 and both cancer and COVID-19 disproportionately affect minority and underserved populations, there is an urgent need to develop a new Louisiana Cancer-COVID-19 Regi-stry to better understand the impact of the current pandemic on cancer patients in the Gulf South Region,” said NCORP principal investigator Dr. Augusto Ochoa, Director of LSU Health New Orleans Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center.
Health care providers are required to report both cancer and COVID-19 diagnoses because these diseases are of such public health importance. LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health’s Louisiana Tumor Registry will work to link its data on cancer incidence with the Louisiana Department of Health’s COVID-19 Registry.
“The collaboration with Dr. DeAnn Gruber and her team at the Office of Public Health at the Louisiana Department of Health has been outstanding,” said Ochoa.
Data from the new Registry will be used to study the effect of COVID-19 on cancer health disparities in Louisiana and more effectively participate in national clinical studies. The Registry will help determine how COVID-19 impacts cancer health disparities in different populations and in rural vs. urban locations.
“The Louisiana Tumor Registry is very enthusiastic about participating in this effort because we believe the Louisiana Cancer-COVID-19 registry will enhance research to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on cancer diagnosis, treatment, and outcome, and to identify corresponding health disparities for actions,” said Dr. Xiao Cheng Wu, Professor and Director of the LSU Health New Orleans Louisiana Tumor Registry, a program in its School of Public Health. “It may also help to determine the location of coronavirus ‘hot spots.’ This project lines up with our vision to reduce suffering and death from cancer in Louisiana.”
“The LA Cancer-COVID-19 Registry will also better prepare us for a resurgence of COVID-19 or other future pandemics by being able to deploy diagnostic, treatment, or epidemiological trials,” said Ochoa.