What is the best hospital for cancer treatments?

When looking for a hospital to treat your cancer, you should take into consideration multiple factors.

Treating cancers is complex as every cancer is different and may respond differently to treatments. Cancer occurs when normal cells in the body become "abnormal" and begin to replicate in your body without control. An analogy I use with my patients is: cancer is like having unwanted weeds in the garden. If left unchecked, the weeds will overgrow any garden. Not all cancer will result in death, so proper follow-up with your doctor is very important!

Depending on where these cancer cells grow in your body, your symptoms may be minimal or very severe. For example, if new cancer cells grow on your skin, you may not notice any problems until later when the cancer cause abnormal bleeding or non-healing sores. On the other hand, the same amount of cancer cells in the eye can result in significant vision loss or in the brain can result in seizures.

Consider the following when looking for a cancer center for treatments:

• Clinical and surgical volume at the cancer center
• Reputation
• Mortality index (may not be helpful if the cancer center deals with a significant number of rare or advanced cancers)
• Nurse to patient ratio (lower the better, that is, one nurse tending to few patients)
• Is the hospital a "Nurse Magnet Hospital"?
• Is the hospital involved in cancer research?
• Is the hospital associated with a University Hospital?

According to the US News and World Report, the following are the top ten cancer hospitals in the U.S.

1. University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston , TX
2. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York , NY
3. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore , MD
4. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Rochester , MN
5. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston , MA
6. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle , WA
7. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston , MA
8. University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco , CA
9. Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Stanford, Palo Alto , CA
10. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles , CA

Cancer in the news:

• Obesity may be linked to higher rates of ovarian cancer Los Angeles Times, CA - Obesity has long been associated with higher rates of breast cancer, but a recent study has noticed a possible link between excess weight and ovarian cancer ...
• Researchers Find Breast Cancer Gene, Spur Hope for New Drugs Bloomberg - Researchers discovered a gene involved in the spread of breast cancer, which may lead to new treatments for a disease that kills about 1 in ...
• Medicare proposes wider cancer scan coverage Reuters - CMS currently allows the scans for cancer patients enrolled in Medicare but requires doctors and patients to enroll in a special registry, ...