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Our mission is the conquest of cancer through innovation and collaboration

The U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center provides its patients diagnostic, treatment and support services in a collaborative environment, focused on excellence in patient care. Drawing on the strengths of the University of Michigan faculty, the Cancer Center has assembled a team of specialists who are leaders in their fields to unravel the threat of cancer and to provide care and comfort to those it afflicts.

Celebrating 10 years of curing and caring

May, 2007 marked the 10-year anniversary of the opening of the Cancer Center building, although the Cancer Center itself was established in 1987. Construction of the building marked a turning point in our history. At the time, our plans included the vision of bringing patient care and research together in one facility. It was a model that continues to influence the next generation of cancer center facilities today.

In more practical terms, however, the new building allowed the standardization of care and development of far better support systems for our patients. Before the Cancer Center opened its doors, we were a loose coalition of 15 cancer clinics spread out across the medical center campus. Infusion alone was located in four departments and handled differently by each.

Cancer researchers were housed in many separate buildings, which at that time were physically unconnected to patient care facilities. A trip to the hospital meant a trek outdoors, rather than a walk through the corridors.

Patient & Family Support Services did not exist. If patient teaching was required, it was handled on an ad hoc basis in chairs in the overcrowded infusion room.

The Cancer Center building brought us together and helped forge an identity that is at the core of what we are today.

How far we have come? Consider these numbers:

• Our patient activity has more than doubled in 10 years, from about 53,000 visits to more than 115,000 projected this year.
• We are ranked No. 7 today in terms of National Cancer Institute funding, up from 10th in 1997.
• Three new multidisciplinary clinics for pancreatic cancer, endocrine oncology and sarcoma were formed since the building's opening, with a fourth for liver cancer planned to begin this summer.
• More than 70 faculty researchers and clinicians have joined our ranks in the past 10 years.
• Survivorship meant you lived five years free of cancer; now we're building a whole program to serve the needs of the legions who are living years beyond a cancer diagnosis.

Click here to view several of our patients reflecting on the care they received at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Learn more about the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center and what we do:

Caring & Curing: U-M Cancer Center Clinics

Healing & Helping: U-M Cancer Center Patient and Family Support Services

Seeking & Discovering: U-M Cancer Center Research

Cancer Center seeks volunteers
For more information, visit our Volunteering web page

• For job openings and related information, please visit the the U-M Health System's Careers page
• For information on becoming a student, please visit the U-M Medical School's web page
• For information on fellowships and other continuing medical education programs, please visit the Department of Medical Education's web page
• Journalists, please the Newsroom

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University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center
1500 East Medical Center Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

This site is part of the U-M Health System. The information presented is not a tool for self diagnosis or a substitute for professional care. © 2008 U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center