The Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration (SARC) is a cancer research organization working to improve patient outcomes and ultimately find a cure for sarcoma. This cancer of the bone and connective tissue is rare in adults, but comprises 15% to 20% of all childhood cancers. SARC was formed in 2003 to bring together the best cancer centers and researchers to share scientific knowledge and advance research to defeat sarcoma.

In addition to managing clinical trials and providing resources and career support for researchers and clinicians, SARC has maintained a map of sarcoma centers to help foster research collaboration and provide sarcoma location information for patients and caregivers.

A recent grant awarded to SARC allowed for the development of the Sarcoma Centers Registry – a new and improved map and database of sarcoma institutions, centers, and practices worldwide. Each center must meet qualification criteria to be included in the Registry and, in addition, provide detailed sarcoma program information.

The Registry will help sarcoma patient decision-making and provide a much needed resource for sarcoma patients, caregivers, and clinical communities across the globe.

Our team worked closely with SARC to design and develop the new web mapping experience – providing user interface and user experience design, and utilizing location-based search using Google Maps API.

The map allows visitors to sort and filter by location and by which population the center treats – pediatric, adult, or both. Each center now has a detail page that includes important information including phone numbers, number of patients seen, and accreditations. The map also highlights SARC Consortium Members – facilities that have an agreement with SARC that streamlines the collaboration and contracting process for clinical trials.

We also collaborated with SARC on the overall Registry process – outlining the steps that each Center and SARC staff would take during the review and entry process as well as developing the application form and CMS fields based on content and input from SARC scientific leadership and the SARC Research Advisory Council.

Now that the Sarcoma Centers Registry is launched, future enhancements can be easily implemented, including new filtering criteria and additional content fields.

The Q LTD project team included Christine Golus, Matt Restorff, and Olivia Graham.