Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, USA

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is the world's oldest and largest private cancer centre. for more than 130 years, the centre has been committed to excellence in patient care, innovative research and first-class medical education programs, and is now one of 45 comprehensive cancer centres designated by the National Cancer Institute, ushering in advanced science, clinical research and treatment flourish.

One of our unique strengths is the close collaboration between physicians and scientists to discover more effective ways to prevent, control and ultimately cure cancer while providing patients with the best treatments available. Our medical education programmes train generations of future doctors and scientists, helping to advance cancer treatment and biomedical research worldwide.

History and Big Events
The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre was founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital on the Upper West Side of Manhattan by Mr and Mrs John J. Astor and others, and renamed the General Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases in 1899. In 1916, the name was changed to Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases after the word "General" was removed. The name was changed to Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases in 1916.)

In 1936, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donated a plot of land on York Avenue to the hospital, which is the current location of our hospital. The new Memorial Hospital was officially opened in 1939 and the hospital building was rebuilt in 1970-1973 and is still standing today.

In the 1940s, two former General Motors executives, Alfred P. Sloan and Charles F. Kettering, joined forces to create the Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI), which has been the leading biomedical research institute in the United States since its inception. Since its inception, the institute has been one of the premier biomedical research institutions in the United States. Officially opened in 1948, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute is located adjacent to Memorial Hospital.

To coordinate and guide the overall policy and development of Memorial Hospital and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre was established in 1960, and in 1980 the two institutions were formally merged under a single president and chief executive officer.

Over the years, we have continued to expand its outpatient facilities and services to meet the growing needs of patients, physicians and researchers.

Patient care
According to US News & World Report, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has been ranked among the top two best hospitals in the United States for cancer specialties for more than 25 years and is one of the nation's leading hospitals for the treatment of childhood cancer.

In addition, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center had more cancer doctors on New York Magazine's 2015 list of Top Doctors than any other hospital in the New York metropolitan area. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center treats patients through teamwork. The Centre currently has more than a dozen multidisciplinary cancer treatment teams that combine the expertise and experience of specialists in various fields to ensure the best possible care for patients. We assemble a team of specialists to meet the needs of patients according to their type of disease, including surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, psychiatrists and nurses.

Our doctors are highly experienced in treating all types of cancer, both common and rare. They treat more than 400 cancer subtypes each year and this level of specialisation often results in a greater chance of disease control or cancer cure for patients.

Advanced diagnostic technology
The radiologists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre specialise in the detection of cancer using advanced imaging techniques. Our pathologists specialise in the accurate diagnosis of cancer using advanced tools, and their extensive experience in this area is unmatched. They analyse approximately 40,000 tumour samples each year to determine the exact diagnosis and extent of disease (staging), and accurate cancer diagnosis and staging is a prerequisite for determining the best treatment options.

Surgical expertise
Our surgeons perform the highest number of cancer surgeries in the country. With a focus on cancer, our surgeons specialise in using advanced surgical techniques to improve the quality of life of patients. Over the years, they have pioneered many surgical innovations in the treatment of cancer, including minimally invasive procedures that can provide treatment for a wide range of cancers.

Pioneering radiation therapy
Our radiation oncologists specialise in the development and application of cutting-edge radiotherapy methods and techniques. They have pioneered intensity-modulated radiotherapy, a technique that delivers higher and more effective doses of radiation to the tumour site while minimising radiation exposure to healthy tissue and organs surrounding the tumour.

More effective chemotherapy
Medical oncologists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre are developing new chemotherapeutic agents that are safer and more effective than standard chemotherapy drugs. They are increasingly using advanced therapies such as immunotherapy or vaccines, often in combination with chemotherapy, to treat cancer more effectively.

Excellence in nursing
Our oncology nurses are professionally trained and work closely with doctors to provide humane treatment, create a safe recovery environment and care for and support patients and their families. Patients benefit from their professional knowledge, experience and expertise, and nearly 35 per cent of them have chosen to continue their nursing care at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre for at least 10 years.

Our nurses participate in the development of quality care standards and decisions related to quality care, and they have pioneered, along with other quality of care experts, a nationally recognized example of good medical care to enhance quality of care and improve patient outcomes.

In fact, we published a comprehensive curriculum for oncology nursing back in 1986, which set the early standards of oncology nursing and laid the foundation for oncology nurse training across the United States.

Supportive care
To help patients and families navigate through treatment, we offer a full range of supportive care services, including genetic counselling, rehabilitation, integrative therapy, counselling services, pain care and palliative care, cancer screening and post-treatment living assistance.

Research
Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre have been leaders in developing new approaches to cancer diagnosis and treatment. We are one of the world's active cancer research centres, with more than 120 research laboratories focused on gaining a deeper understanding of each type of cancer. With more than 35 state-of-the-art core research facilities, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center offers its research teams access to new research technologies and a variety of expert services.

Our excellence in patient care is made possible by our innovative programs in basic, translational and clinical research. In fact, from 1980 to 2012, nine of the drugs developed in our laboratories received marketing approval from the US Food and Drug Administration - a success rate unmatched by any other cancer centre.

As the basic research arm of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute (SKI) is committed to gaining insight into the biological mechanisms of cancer through eight research programmes. The Institute's researchers collaborate with Memorial's physician-scientists to accelerate the application of important laboratory findings to the clinical treatment of patients.

Memorial conducts a wide range of research programmes covering basic laboratory research, translational research (the translation of laboratory discoveries to clinical outcomes), and mathematical and computational research (the analysis and interpretation of biomedical data).

The clinical research programme conducted at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre is also among the largest in the world. Our physicians and scientists form disease-focused research teams who translate basic scientific discoveries into advanced new therapies through their research. In addition, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center actively initiates and participates in clinical trials to identify more effective cancer therapies. As of December 2012, our physicians have worked on more than 1,100 pediatric and adult cancer clinical research projects.

Our researchers actively collaborate internally and externally, joining laboratory researchers and clinicians from different specialties to deepen our understanding of tumour biology and explore new ways to cure, control and prevent cancer.