review center type non profit organization industry quality assurance clinical trials founded 1980 headquarters lincoln rhode island products diagnostic imaging data management cancer research website www.qarc.org dead link the quality assurance review center qarc is a research program within the university of massachusetts medical school umms that provides radiotherapy rt quality assurance qa diagnostic imaging data management and clinical research support . 1 located in lincoln rhode island qarc is a nationally and internationally recognized program serving the national cancer institute nci sponsored cooperative groups and industry partners . 1 these cooperative groups and their industry partners conduct a wide variety of clinical trials in order to evaluate the overall effectiveness of protocol driven cancer treatment strategies . 2 contents 1 history 2 mission 3 organization 3.1 administration 3.2 clinical 3.3 data management 3.4 information systems 3.5 physics dosimetry 4 services 5 notes and references 6 external links history edit the history of qarc can be traced back to the late 1970s when rhode island hospital was conducting rt qa reviews of leukemia based protocols for the calgb which is one of the major nci sponsored cooperative groups . due to the quality management of the calgb s trials other cooperative groups like the pediatric oncology group pog and the children s cancer study group ccg decided to ensure the quality of their respective trials through the auspices of qarc . it was at this time that qarc began to seek funding from the nci in order to manage the large influx of rt data . by 1980 qarc had received its first grant monies from the nci as it expanded to cover a wider array of protocol based studies . 3 over the course of the next fifteen years of so qarc began to implement a series of changes to the retrospective review process especially with regard to its physics dosimetry division . in 1996 qarc switched its affiliation from the brown university school of medicine to umass medical school . by late 2003 qarc moved from its former location at the roger williams medical center rwmc to offices in providence s federal hill neighborhood . and in august 2010 qarc relocated to its current site on the george washington highway in lincoln . mission edit the qarc mission is to improve the standard of care in the management of cancer by ensuring quality . 4 providing radiotherapy quality assurance is essential for ensuring the validity of data across multi disciplinary cooperative group trials . qarc employs a methodology that is responsive and supportive of the national cancer clinical trials enterprise . as radiotherapy evolves in the area of image based target volume definitions and as digital information continues to supplant hard copy formats for both diagnostic imaging and rt data qarc continually strives to support these developments . and with today s advanced technologies in the areas of motion management and other real time delivery modifications meeting the growing demand for quality assurance in the ever expanding field of cancer treatment is a top priority for qarc . organization edit the qarc infrastructure is composed of five divisions . these divisions include administration clinical data management dm information systems is and physics dosimetry . administration edit the administration division is predominantly focused on constructing and sustaining working relationships between qarc and the various nci supported oncology groups as well as the pharmaceutical industry . it collaborates with the umass medical school in matters pertaining to accounting employment and professional development . one previous clinical trial that was organized by the division involved french drugmaker sanofi aventis and the experimental chemotherapeutic agent tirapazamine . 5 6 most of the major nci sponsored cooperative groups are mandated to send their radiotherapy materials to qarc for review and they include acosog cog ecog swog and calgb . 1 clinical edit the clinical division primarily consists of various diagnostic and therapeutic radiologists who conduct both real time and retrospective reviews . in the five years since 2003 qarc has performed interventional rt reviews for over 6 000 protocol enrolled patients . data management edit the data management division receives and processes all forms of data relating to a particular patient and the corresponding protocol . typical forms of data include diagnostic imaging physics benchmarks and radiology reports . the diagnostic imaging segment of data management usually involves computed tomography ct positron emission tomography pet and magnetic resonance imaging mri scans . occasionally qarc will obtain gallium and bone scans insofar as a protocol mandates them . with the shift in nuclear medicine toward electronic medical records emrs dm works closely with is to maintain qarc s digital database . information systems edit the information systems division maintains and upgrades qarc s digital database . as of 2008 the qarc database contained records on over 40 000 patients enrolled on more than 200 protocols . the rt information and diagnostic imaging data stored on qarc s servers is submitted from around 1 000 hospitals in both the united states and abroad . physics dosimetry edit the physics dosimetry division is mostly concerned with evaluating the radiation dose calculations submitted with each patient on a protocol . in addition the division works closely with various institutions which include the cooperative oncology groups and the pharmaceutical industry partners to develop and implement new benchmarks for specific areas of radiation therapy . in keeping with its responsibility as a quality assurance agent the division participates in initial interventional and final reviews so as to assure a high degree of integrity with regard to protocol guidelines . services edit protocol development site credentialing data acquisition case management & archiving diagnostic & therapeutic radiology case review institutional performance evaluation & reporting research & publications notes and references edit a b c center for clinical and translational science umass medical school archived october 3 2012 at the wayback machine . umms department of radiation oncology funded research portfolio national cancer institute about qarc quality assurance review center archived july 27 2011 at the wayback machine . trace tirapazamine radiation and cisplatin evaluation national institutes of health revamped quality assurance approach embarks on a new era in clinical trials cancer network external links edit official website national institutes of health umass medical school cabig v t e university of massachusetts medical school affiliations quality assurance review center umass memorial health care worcester foundation for biomedical research v t e national institutes of health institutes national cancer institute national eye institute national heart lung and blood institute national human genome research institute national institute on aging national institute on alcohol abuse and alcoholism national institute of allergy and infectious diseases national institute of arthritis and musculoskeletal and skin diseases national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering national institute of child health and human development national institute on deafness and other communication disorders national institute of dental and craniofacial research national institute of diabetes and digestive and kidney diseases national institute on drug abuse national institute of environmental health sciences national institute of general medical sciences national institute of mental health national institute on minority health and health disparities national institute of neurological disorders and stroke national institute of nursing research national library of medicine centers center for information technology center for scientific review john e. fogarty international center national center for complementary and integrative medicine national center for advancing translational sciences vaccine research center national institutes of health clinical center programs visible human project national diabetes education program directors joseph j. kinyoun milton j. rosenau john f. anderson george w. mccoy lewis r. thompson rolla dyer william h. sebrell jr james augustine shannon robert q. marston robert stone donald s. fredrickson james b. wyngaarden bernadine healy harold e. varmus elias a. zerhouni francis s. collins related nih record united states public health service division of intramural research national institutes of health campus national institutes of health director s pioneer award nih public access policy national center for research resources national institutes of health police retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title quality assurance review center & oldid 738489710 categories cancer organizations based in the united statesmedical research institutes in the united statesnational institutes of healthradiation therapyhidden categories articles with wayback machine linksall articles with dead external linksarticles with dead external links from september 2016official website different in wikidata and wikipedia navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 9 september 2016 at 07 29 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view