UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center: Information for Patients

I N F O R M AT I O N F O R PAT I E N T S

UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center Conquering Cancer Worldwide through Innovation and Education At the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center we accelerate the science and medicine of cancer care through innovation. Through education, we share these advances across the globe.

A recent U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Hospitals” survey ranked UCSF first among California cancer-care providers and eighth in the nation. The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Northern California.

Our Mission and Vision At the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, we share a common mission: the elimination of cancer as a life-threatening disease.

Every day, teams of clinicians, scientists and educators work together to advance this mission. In partnership with our referring physicians and patients, we strive to provide the most effective treatment available today.

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Conquering Cancer Specialists at UCSF treat nearly all adult and pediatric cancers. A full range of treatment options are available including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and blood and bone marrow transplantation.

Young patients requiring hospitalization receive care at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, one of the top-ranked children’s hospitals in the nation. Our services include the Cancer Risk Program, which serves families with a history of cancer. Together, our team of oncologists and cancer risk specialists create a personalized plan which can include treatment, future testing and steps for prevention. The Cancer Risk Program is the largest program of its kind in Northern California.

UCSF is a national leader in the development of new treatments spanning the full spectrum of cancer disorders. Many of these therapies are now FDA-approved and considered the standard of care. UCSF researchers are studying many new treatments that provide promise in areas where previously few options existed.

For example, research at the cancer center includes the study of the human genome, which represents the total hereditary information of human beings. This research has led to the introduction of new tests that capture cancer’s diversity and allow for tailored treatments. With greater understanding of how cancer develops, treatment can be targeted more effectively.

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Improving Patients’ Quality of Life Our innovative approach to care extends to services designed to help patients better cope with cancer. Our Symptom Management Service, for example, was identified as a “new frontier in palliative care” in a recent edition of the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Our developing Survivorship Program is using an online patient health survey to better screen patients for emerging problems.

Through the Ernest H. Rosenbaum, MD Art for Recovery Program, patients coping with cancer can express their feelings and experiences through art.

The program is a past winner of the Blair L. Sadler International Arts Competition, sponsored by the Society for the Arts in Healthcare.

The Ida and Joseph Friend Cancer Resource Center offers a welcoming place for patients seeking access to cancer information, support groups, exercise classes and workshops. Our meditation room provides an opportunity for a quiet moment alone. For more information, call (415) 885-3693 or visit www.ucsfhealth.org/crc.

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Putting Patients First Each of our cancer patients is unique, though they also have many needs in common. Thousands come here each year for the latest, most effective therapies, certainly, but they also come for caregivers who know the value of compassion and take the time to listen.

In 2005, when Jessica Galloway faced a complicated case of stage 3 breast cancer, she turned to UCSF for her surgery, treatment and even access to a new clinical trial.

“What was immediately apparent to me was that the care provided at UCSF is wrapped around the patient,” Jessica says. “All the care that revolved around me came to me, as opposed to me having to go seek it out.”

Today, Jessica is cancer-free. “I really feel like every day is this incredible gift,” she says. “The youngest of my three children just started kindergarten, and I wasn't sure I was going to see her go.

I am really very grateful.”

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Joining Forces: Patient Care, Education and Research The University of California, San Francisco has produced many of the world’s best cancer physicians, researchers, nurses and health professionals.

UCSF Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy are consistently ranked among the top 10 health sciences schools in the nation.

The interactions between staff involved in patient care, medical education and research leads to advances in care that can only be found at a leading academic medical center. This combination, for example, was key in helping UCSF medical oncologists, working with industry, revolutionize treatment for colon cancer by employing a new class of drugs that attack the tumor’s blood supply, literally starving the cancer and inhibiting growth, as well as developing the only vaccine therapy for prostate cancer.

It is translating these kinds of laboratory discoveries into next-generation cancer therapies for which UCSF is known, and is why places like the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center are the birthplaces of some of the greatest breakthroughs in cancer care.

Everyone here, from our physicians and researchers to our psychologists, social workers, dieticians and support staff, continuously develops innovative approaches designed to improve the well-being of patients during active treatment and beyond.

In addition, members of our medical staff participate on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guideline panels which produce a broad range of cancer-specific treatment guidelines that are considered the standard of care for patients being treated for cancer.

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Clinical Trials: Developing the Most Effective Treatments New advances in care start with scientific research performed in the laboratory. Information learned in the laboratory is then applied to potential clinical applications by physicians who are specialists in their fields. Before these new treatments can become readily available, they must be tested in a clinical setting through controlled studies called clinical trials. The drive to continuously learn and understand the causes of cancer and to find new and improved ways to combat this disease has always been at the very core of our mission. Because of decades of research in UCSF laboratories and clinics, countless adults and children diagnosed with cancer are alive and well today.

For patients who are eligible, participation in clinical trials may offer access to promising new treatment methods that are often not available elsewhere and results from these studies may help others in the future.

Clinical trials at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center have led to breakthroughs such as: The development of Provenge, the first-ever vaccine cancer

treatment. By working to boost the body’s own immune system, Provenge has been shown to extend the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer.

PARP targeted therapy, the first treatment for an aggressive type of

breast cancer common in younger women, has shown increased survival rates for patients in clinical trials conducted here. This treatment has been submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for approval.

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The center is home to recipients of Nobel Prizes in Physiology and Medicine

In all areas of cancer care, our physicians are actively involved in continuously improving treatment options. For example, the UCSF Brain Tumor Research Center, through funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is exploring the use of stem cells to deliver new therapies to treat malignant brain tumors. The cancer center’s Phase I program offers patients the opportunity to participate in clinical trials of treatments offered for the first time.

UCSF’s longstanding reputation as a center of this type of groundbreaking research attracts some of the best and brightest scientists and physician researchers in the world. These men and women are drawn to the cancer center for the opportunity to be at the forefront of significant advances against cancer and to work in a center that is known for providing superb clinical care.

Clinical trials are listed online at www.cancer.ucsf.edu/trials. For more information, call (877) 827-3222 or email clinicaltrials@cc.ucsf.edu.

Understanding the Causes of Cancer The cancer center’s population science experts explore cancer within specific populations, applying their expertise in epidemiology, statistics and behavioral sciences to uncover the role that genetics, nutrition, physical activity, infectious diseases, lifestyle and the environment play in the higher incidence of cancer in certain groups.

Because of the extraordinary diversity of the population in Northern California, ours is one of the country’s most valuable areas for conducting this type of research. As a result, UCSF’s population science program is at the forefront of developing strategies that could reduce the incidence of cancer, make treatment more effective and improve the quality of life for all cancer patients and their families.

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Mission Bay: A Turning Point in Cancer Care Our new cancer hospital, scheduled to open in 2014 at Mission Bay, will combine advanced technology with a healing environment. Located adjacent to UCSF’s biomedical research campus and co-located with new children’s and women’s specialty hospitals, the 70-bed cancer hospital will offer cancer surgeries in specialties ranging from endocrinology and orthopedics to melanoma and gynecologic oncology. To learn more, visit www.missionbayhospitals.ucsf.edu.

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Architectural rendering showing the future Mission Bay hospitals.

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