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Comprehensive Cancer Centres and the war on cancer

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 1, pages 240–245 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

Comprehensive Cancer Centres are now recognized as an important weapon in the war on cancer, but they had to fight a very different battle to become accepted by the academic community. Why were these centres developed? How do they contribute to cancer research? Have they achieved the aims for which they were set up? And how should they be improved? It is important to answer these questions because we believe that cancer centres, though in need of improvement, are vital parts of our anticancer strategy.

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Figure 1: The Warren G. Magnesen Clinical Centre's first patient: Charles C. Meredith.
Figure 2: The interactions of clinical programmes and supporting disciplines in a matrix cancer centre.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported, in part, by grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and by a grant from the National Cancer Institute. The authors appreciate the assistance of the staff of the Cancer Centres Programme of the National Cancer Institute, particularly J. Bhorjee. Valuable references were provided by G. Canellos and D. Livingston. We also thank T. Church for his efforts in manuscript preparation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney Street, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    David Nathan & Edward J. Benz Jr

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  1. David Nathan
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  2. Edward J. Benz Jr
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Nathan.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

NCI Cancer Centre Programme

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1990

Science, the Endless Frontier

Timeline of Vannevar Bush's achievements

The Warren G. Magnesen Clinical Center

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Nathan, D., Benz, E. Comprehensive Cancer Centres and the war on cancer. Nat Rev Cancer 1, 240–245 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35106102

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