The Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center (CCTCC) was ranked by U.S. News and World Report as Ohio’s best cancer hospital, as well as being one of the leading centers for cancer care and research in the nation. The CCTCC provides advanced cancer education, prevention, treatment, and research programs to Ohio residents and the worldwide cancer community beyond. The CCTCC provides its cancer fighting services to patients at the Cleveland Clinic, a state-of-the-art medical facility with partner locations in Weston and Palm Beach, Florida, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and a soon to be completed 360 bed facility in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The Cleveland Clinic is also in a partnership with eight satellite medical facilities located throughout Northeastern Ohio.
A National Network of Cancer Education, Treatment, and Research Centers
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the federal agency that is chiefly responsible for the governmental administration, promotion, and oversight of tax dollar funded cancer research in the United States. In the early 1960s, in response to the ever increasing problem of cancer in this country and around the globe, the NCI began to develop a plan for the establishment of a university-based, nationwide network of cancer centers that would serve all regions of the country.
The NCI presented its plan to Congress, which subsequently passed the National Cancer Act (NCA), administrative legislation that was signed into law in August of 1971. The NCA eventually resulted in the 63 National Cancer Centers that exist in all regions of the country today. The Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center is an NCI designated Cancer Center, an accreditation that is only given to those institutions that provide the most advanced forms of cancer services.
Cancer Research at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center
The CCTCC is a nationally recognized center for cancer research, and it conducts wide ranging scientific investigations into cancer prevention, causation, and treatment with the eventual goal of a cure for the disease always in mind. The CCTCC conducts numerous bench (laboratory) and clinical (patient-involved) studies, many of which provide patients at the Cleveland institution with the opportunity to participate in one of the many clinical trials that are ongoing at the CCTCC. Today, the Cancer Center organizes its extensive research studies under the six programs that are noted below:
- Bladder Cancer Research: Scientists in this program seek to discover novel ways to detect one of the more difficult to diagnose genitourinary cancers that claims approximately 175,000 lives each year. Researchers are examining novel ways to achieve the earliest possible detection of the disease, as well as to develop improved treatments for bladder cancer.
- Drug Discovery: Researchers in this field of study concentrate on biological agents that target specific genes and genetic products that are suspected of causing cancer. These studies are designed to develop new, safe, and effective cancer fighting drugs and chemotherapies.
- Experimental Hematopoiesis: Leukemia and bone marrow failure syndromes are examined in this program in a way that brings laboratory research into a clear, clinically useful focus that allows scientists from various disciplines to create new treatments for these deadly blood-based diseases.
- Experimental Therapeutics: This is an interdisciplinary branch of scientific investigation that concentrates on delivering new research findings to the stage of animal and human clinical trials. Many types of cancer are studied in this field of research, and it is a crucial step towards taking cancer science from the laboratory to the cancer patient.
- Genomics: Wide ranging studies that examine the genetic implications of cancer through the use of nucleic acid-based (DNA related) technologies. The genomics program focuses on various susceptibilities or predispositions (risk factors) to cancer through inherited and other genetic traits that lead to the onset of many different types of cancer.
- Melanoma: Scientists here seek to find novel therapies that will prolong the life of those who have melanoma (skin cancer), while also developing safe and effective therapeutics that will significantly improve the quality of life for those who have melanoma. Human clinical trials are ongoing in this program, and for many cancer patients, these studies offer a potentially viable melanoma treatment option.
Patient Care at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center
The CCTCC offers NCI endorsed cancer treatments for all types of adult and childhood cancers at the state-of-the-art Cleveland hospital. The latest in surgical, chemotherapeutic, and radiological therapies are provided on both an inpatient and outpatient basis in a nationally recognized cancer treatment environment. Because of the numerous and ongoing research programs at the CCTCC, many patients will have the opportunity to enroll in a clinical trial that is designed to ameliorate patient-specific malignant disease.
The CCTCC also provides all cancer patients and their families with comprehensive forms of cancer support services that are offered at the clinic itself or in the Cleveland area community. The CCTCC provides professional counseling services that are related to all aspects of cancer treatments and care, including: religious; psychological and psychosocial; emotional and grief; ethical; gender related, specialized forms of pediatric counseling and more. Disease-specific support groups are offered at the Cleveland Clinic, and patients and families at the CCTCC can also expect to be provided with information on community-based cancer resources such as hospice and home care services, as well as logistical information on lodging and dining, etc.
Contact the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center
The main phone number is (216) 444-2200 or toll-free (800) 223-2273, and for a more complete phone listing directory or to learn more about the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center, please visit their website at http://my.clevelandclinic.org/cancer/
The Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center
The Cleveland Clinic
9500 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44195
Google map for Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center
