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NCCN Publishes a Resource-Stratified Framework of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Cervical Cancer
NCCN has published the NCCN Framework for Resource Stratification of NCCN Guidelines (NCCN Framework™) for Cervical Cancer; the NCCN Framework™ guides evidence-based adaptation to available clinical treatment resources.
FORT WASHINGTON, PA — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has published the NCCN Framework for Resource Stratification of NCCN Guidelines (NCCN Framework™) for Cervical Cancer.
The NCCN Framework™ guides evidence-based adaptation to available clinical treatment resources. NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) are used widely around the world, including in a number of low and middle income countries (LMICs) where certain diagnostic tests and/or treatment approaches may be unavailable. The goal of the NCCN Framework™ is to define appropriate treatment pathways at four resource levels—Basic, Limited, Enhanced, and Maximal—and deliver a tool for health care providers to identify treatment options that will provide the best possible outcomes given specific resource constraints.
“NCCN is presenting a framework to help health care planners prioritize their use of cancer treatment resources in limited resource settings, and assist policy makers in outlining cancer control plans that are data-driven, evidence-based blueprints for action. As such, the NCCN Framework furthers NCCN’s mission to improve the lives of people with cancer around the globe,” said Benjamin O. Anderson, MD, University of Washington Professor of Surgery and Global Health Medicine at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, and Chair of the NCCN International Program Committee.
The NCCN Framework™ outlines a rational approach for building cancer management systems to provide the highest achievable level of care for stage-specific cancers by applying available or attainable tests and treatments. In addition, the NCCN Framework™ can be used to define strategic pathways for growth by illustrating how new resources or tools introduced in a stepwise fashion can optimally improve on current best practice models and cancer outcomes.
The four levels of NCCN Framework™ resources are defined as:
- Basic: Essential services needed to provide basic minimal standard of care
- Limited: Services that provide major improvements in disease outcomes, e.g. survival, that are not cost prohibitive
- Enhanced: Services that provide lesser improvements in disease outcomes, or services that provide major improvements in disease outcomes but are cost prohibitive at lower resource levels
- Maximal: Services that do not provide improvement in disease outcomes but are desirable services, or services that provide minor improvements in disease outcomes but are cost prohibitive in lower resource levels
“The NCCN Guidelines continue to emerge as the global standard for clinical policy in oncology, and the publication of the NCCN Framework for Cervical Cancer indeed complements the growing library of resources available to international oncology stakeholders as they work to provide the best possible outcomes for people with cancer,” said Robert W. Carlson, MD, Chief Executive Officer, NCCN.
NCCN develops and maintains 61 NCCN Guidelines for cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and supportive care, as well as more than 70 translations of NCCN Content in 12 languages and several international adaptations that allow for consideration of biologic differences in populations, local accessibility, and regulatory status of interventions used in specific global regions. The preliminary version of the NCCN Framework™ for Cervical Cancer was published in March 2015.
The NCCN Framework™ for Cervical Cancer is available at NCCN.org/framework.
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