155
Published Articles
9
Veterans Affairs Hospitals
2000
Year Formed
About the SEARCH cohort
The Shared Equal Access Regional Cancer Hospital (SEARCH) cohort is a prospective longitudinal study of prostate cancer patients undergoing treatment at nine Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMC) across the United States. Men are enrolled from the following VAMC sites: San Diego, CA; Greater Los Angeles, CA; Palo Alto, CA; San Francisco, CA; Portland, OR; Augusta, GA; Asheville, NC; Durham, NC; and San Juan, Puerto Rico Centers. The cohort study is associated with prominent research institutions including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA; Duke University, North Carolina; University of California, San Diego; David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; University of California, San Francisco; Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR; Georgia Regents University; and University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR.
The purpose of the SEARCH cohort is to take full advantage of the strength of the racially diverse VA population and the VA electronic medical record system, for prostate cancer research with the aim of informing clinical practice. The SEARCH cohort was formed in 2000 under the leadership of Dr. Stephen Freedland (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Durham VAMC). Dr. Freedland and the SEARCH investigators published their first paper on the role of race predicting prostate cancer outcomes after radical prostatectomies in October 2002. Since that time the group has published over 155 manuscripts including one in the Journal of the American Medical Association, two in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and four in European Urology (the highest ranking urology journal in the world). On average there has been a publication every other month for the past eighteen years.
We have a dedicated full-time staff including research coordinators, database developers, data scientists, statisticians, clinical trials assistants, data technicians, and administrative support staff. Due to the strength of the VA system, the cohort team (located in Durham, NC) has access to all electronic medical records for all subjects in the entire VA system. Thus, from one central location we are able to track the outcomes of all men with prostate cancer in SEARCH. It is this type of centralization of data combined with the strong drive of the SEARCH investigative team that has resulted in over 155 publications to date.
Though historically, our efforts have largely been focused on men undergoing radical prostatectomy, SEARCH is also comprised of extensive data on patients in various stages of treatment including those undergoing prostate biopsies and managed with active surveillance, men undergoing primary treatment with radiation therapy, those who have developed castrate resistant prostate cancer, and men who have developed metastatic disease.