Cancer Center

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Mercy Hospital Cancer Institute

Mercy Hospital Cancer Institute

Home to the second highest rate of cancer diagnosis in the nation, Louisiana is the perfect location for the world-class Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans.

Utilizing a unique, integrative approach to treatment that combines education, research, and patient care, the Ochsner Medical Center is one of the country’s premier cancer treatment facilities.

Home to a new malignant pleural mesothelioma treatment program, new developments are constantly being made at Ochsner. Thoracic surgeon Dr. Rodney Landreneau, former head of Ochsner cancer institute, performed Louisiana’s very first surgical debulking/hyperthermic chemoperfusion procedure for a patient with mesothelioma.

Ochsner is quickly becoming the most sought-out mesothelioma treatment location in the Gulf South region, occupying a market that has forced past patients to travel all over the country in order to find the right treatment option. As the most advanced cancer center in the region, Ochsner Medical Center is fulfilling that role, and offers more clinical trials and cancer resources than other cancer treatment centers in the region.

Achievements

The Ochsner Medical Center has been acclaimed for its achievements in medicine since its conception. It has been referenced in eight of the twelve specialty rankings by the U.S. News & World Report 2014; less than one-hundred and fifty hospitals in the country are ranked nationally in one category. Ochsner received eight rankings in the following disciplines: 16th in Gastroenterology and GI Surgery, 21st in Diabetes & Endocrinology, 24th in Pulmonology, 24th in Cardiology and Heart Surgery, 31st in Orthopedics, 35th in Neurology and Neurosurgery, 42nd in Geriatrics, and 45th in Nephrology.

Receiving the “High Performing” distinction in other categories, such as cancer care, Ochsner also performed well in other medical fields.

Gayle and Tom Benson Cancer Center

Opening in 2010, the Gayle and Tom Benson Cancer Center facility has been a huge asset to the hospital. Ochsner Medical Center has offered cancer care since as early as 1981. Opening the Gayle and Tom Benson Center has amounted to a huge increase in patients, as well as a dramatic increase in the quality of care and clinical trials. The Center treated and diagnosed about three-thousand and two-hundred cancer patients in 2012. It also provided integrative care for both adults and children; these patients benefited from the large number of social workers, nurses, researchers, and oncologists, who are all based out of the hospital.

The environment is intended to represent a wholistic healing environment for those undergoing care at the center; the idea is that the center is home to any services a patient would need. It contains everything from social workers to financial consultants as well as cancer specialists and the most advanced diagnostic technology available. The facility contains specifically designated clinics for integrative cancer care, radiation oncology, hematology oncology, and chemotherapy infusion. The center is also home to a specific Prostate Center and Multidisciplinary Lung Cancer Clinic.

Complete with educational and research tools, the facility is perfectly equipped for all sorts of patients and families. The Ochsner Medical Center is an integral part of the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium, or LCRC, and benefits from a weathered research relationship with its sister institution, the LSU Health Sciences Center. The Health Sciences Center is an essential partner with Ochsner in the fight for cancer prevention and treatment.

The Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium is a productive partnership among four Louisiana medical institutions. These institutions include the following: Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Tulane University Health Sciences Center, Xavier University of Louisiana, and Ochsner Health System. Their mission lies with the fight to improve cancer education as well as transform cancer research.

Lung Cancer Clinic

The Multidisciplinary Lung Cancer Clinic at Ochsner utilizes an integrative approach towards epidemiology, medical oncology, thoracic surgery, pulmonary medicine, pathology, and radiation oncology. This collaboration almost always flourishes into groundbreaking treatment approaches. At Ochsner, collaboration between disciplines is seen as the goal, and provides each patient with a personalized treatment regimen. Each division’s specialists meet together on a weekly basis in order to discuss the current cases; this way each patient receives the very best care.

World-class imaging and image-guided radiation therapy technologies are available, thanks to Ochsner’s dedication towards attaining the best technology available. Along with robotic assisted surgeries and minimally invasive procedures, which lead to shorter recovery intervals, patients at Ochsner can be assured that they are receiving the best care available at any given time.

Clinical Trials

Ochsner has a long history of thriving within the communities of clinical trials and overall cancer research. These sects of the medical community aim to evaluate the efficacy of novel advancements in technology and cancer treatment. Ochsner is home to the largest and most developed clinical trial initiative in the New Orleans area.

Specific mesothelioma clinical trials are very often underway at Ochsner. Two trials currently ongoing; one involves the continued administration of the chemotherapy drug pemetrexed, also known as Alimta, after first-line chemotherapy with the two drugs combined. The other trial involves a targeted drug, currently called LEE011, which stops/slows the growth of cancerous cells.

Ochsner’s Community Clinical Oncology Program, or CCOP, transformed into a novel institution in 1983 with its first funding from the NCI, or National Cancer Institute. This institution provides a direct link to the latest clinical trials going on throughout the country at any given time. This infrastructure provides Ochsner with an important research link and makes it a leader in the business of cancer treatment. The CCOP was replaced with the National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program, which determines logical enrollment for more than two-hundred individuals in clinical trials every year.

At Ochsner, the trials underway are often utilized to compare and contrast experimental treatment techniques that have not been yet approved by the U.S. food and Drug Administration (FDA) to established, tried-and-approved therapies. Such clinics aid physicians, biotech professionals, and pharmaceutical companies with designing new treatment approaches.

At Ochsner, trials are underway for cancers of the breast, prostate, brain, lung, and pancreas; there are also trials underway for leukemia, melanoma, myeloma, and various head and neck cancers.

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