Yale Bulletin
and Calendar

December 14, 1998-January 18, 1999Volume 27, Number 16




























Cancer Center again earns national designation from the NCI

The Yale Cancer Center has again been designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a comprehensive cancer center.

With this designation comes national and international recognition as a center of excellence in scientific research, as well as recognition as an important community and regional resource with respect to cancer information, cancer education and cancer outreach. In August, the Yale Cancer Center was granted renewed funding by the NCI to continue cancer research activities.

"This national designation distinguishes Yale as a truly comprehensive cancer center," says Dr. Vincent T. DeVita Jr., director of the Yale Cancer Cancer and a former director of the NCI.

"What this means to patients," DeVita says, "is that they can come here assured in the knowledge that they will be receiving the most advanced, newly developed treatments available based on leading-edge laboratory research and human investigations.

The state-of-the-art always was begun at cancer centers."

The Yale Cancer Center first received comprehensive status from the NCI in 1974, becoming one of the first centers to be so designated. It is currently one of 37 comprehensive centers in the United States and the only one in southern New England. Bringing together the resources of Yale-New Haven Hospital and the School of Medicine, the 350 members of the Yale Cancer Center engage in multidisciplinary research aimed at reducing cancer incidence, morbidity and mortality.

To attain recognition from NCI as a comprehensive cancer center, an institution must pass rigorous peer review. Under guidelines revised in 1997, a comprehensive center must perform research in three major areas: basic research; clinical research; and cancer prevention, control and population-based research. It must also have a strong body of interactive research that bridges these research areas.

In addition, a comprehensive cancer center must conduct activities in outreach, education, and information provision, which are directed toward and accessible to both health care professionals and the lay community.

Passage of the National Cancer Act in 1971 helped strengthen the National Cancer Institute Cancer Centers Program. Today, NCI-designated cancer centers continue to work toward creating new and innovative approaches to cancer research. Through interdisciplinary efforts, cancer centers can effectively move this research from the laboratory into clinical trials and into clinical practice.

"In a field as dynamic and as rapidly evolving as cancer treatment, the multi-disciplinary collaboration that a comprehensive cancer center fosters between scientists pursuing basic research and clinical specialists allows patients the earliest possible exposure to treatment breakthroughs," DeVita says.