Mayo Clinic Cancer Center – Mayo oncologists at three sites work together with a single goal

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Rochester became an NCI-designated cancer center in 1973. Mayo began to expand its cancer research to Mayo operations in Jacksonville and Scottsdale in the 1990s. In 2002, the National Cancer Institute recognized Mayo's efforts by extending its Comprehensive Cancer Center designation to include all three sites: Rochester, Jacksonville and Arizona.

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center is dedicated to understanding the biology of cancer; to discovering new ways to predict, prevent, diagnose and treat cancer; and to improving the quality of life for cancer patients.

Commitment to patient care, education and research means that knowledge gained from cancer research is quickly translated into effective improvements in patient care. Mayo Clinic Cancer Center treats more than 16,000 new cancer patients every year, making it one of the largest cancer centers in the nation.

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center is the only NCI-designated cancer center with a national presence. Its three locations — Rochester, Jacksonville and Arizona — give the cancer center a broad geographic reach to serve diverse patient populations and bring diverse perspectives to its research.

The Melanoma Study Group, formed in 1999, is a model of cancer center research collaboration across the three sites. The study group arose out of a need to coalesce efforts to fight this devastating disease.

"I have been involved in melanoma treatment here for 16 years," says William Maples, M.D., an oncologist who leads Mayo's Melanoma Study Group in Jacksonville. "The integration efforts have already had a remarkable impact on my practice."

Members of the Melanoma Study Group meet via teleconference four times each year. They have developed practice guidelines that are used at all sites, and they come together to review and revise the practice guidelines every year.

"We now have 90 clinicians and scientists from 15 disciplines collaborating on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of melanoma," says Mark Pittelkow, M. D., who chairs the Melanoma Study Group.

Mayo Clinic's philosophy of patient care, laid out more than 100 years ago, emphasizes that "it is necessary to develop medicine as a cooperative science — the clinician, the specialist, and the laboratory workers uniting for the good of the patient."

That philosophy continues today as Mayo physicians and researchers form powerful collaborations across programs and specialties. Their collective wisdom multiplies the potential for breakthroughs in cancer research and treatment. They translate scientific discoveries in the laboratory into leading-edge treatments and therapies for patients.