Facts About Mount Sinai in Cancer Research and Treatment
The Mount Sinai Medical Center is a leader in patient-centered, multi-disciplinary cancer research and treatment.
The Mount Sinai Medical Center is a leader in patient-centered, multi-disciplinary cancer research and treatment. Located in New York City, Mount Sinai's diverse patient population creates the ideal conditions for world-class translational research. Mount Sinai's complete integration of research and clinical care offers new hope for those living with or at risk of cancer.
Centers for Cancer Care and Research
- At Mount Sinai, multidisciplinary teams that include renowned medical oncologists, surgeons, pathologists, radiation oncologists, and palliative care specialists, as well as social workers and nutritionists, work together to diagnose and treat all cancer diagnoses. These include but are not limited to blood, bone marrow, and lymph node cancers, breast cancer, head and neck cancers, prostate, colon and other gastrointestinal cancers, lung cancer, and more.
- At the newly constructed Norma and Leon Hess Center for Science and Medicine, two floors of cancer clinical care located just below two full floors of cancer research space facilitate real-time collaboration between scientists and clinicians on new discoveries and patient care.
- The new Hess Center doubles the size of Mount Sinai's outpatient facility at the Derald H. Ruttenberg Treatment Center, patients easy access to treatments like chemotherapy and emerging care options through clinical trials.
- All patients who are diagnosed with cancer and blood disorders, except for breast cancer, will be cared for at the new facility. Breast cancer patients will continue to be treated at the outstanding facilities of the Dubin Breast Center at 1176 Fifth Avenue, right around the corner.
- At the Tisch Cancer Institute, pilot studies and clinical trials are fueling the development of new drugs and better treatments, including immunotherapies that are revolutionizing cancer care. This investigator-initiated research represents a true “bench to bedside” approach that allows physicians and scientists to translate cutting-edge research into real-time treatment.
Unparalleled Advancement
- Mount Sinai leads one of the foremost programs in the country for the diagnosis and treatment of multiple myeloma. The program conducted clinical trials with Lenalidomide and Bortezomib, two novel drugs that are now standard of care.
- Mount Sinai researchers recently discovered that the Melanoma Antigen Gene (MAGE)-A3 is highly expressed in multiple myeloma. When that gene is "turned off," the cancer cells die and the disease cannot proliferate.
- Mount Sinai works closely with the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, the nonprofit organization that supports innovative treatments for the disease. Together they are carrying out the genomic sequencing of 1,000 newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients.
- Mount Sinai is also leading a clinical trial for a new drug under review by the FDA called pomalidomide, which extends survival in patients who have failed two other therapies.
- Mount Sinai is only one of a few places offering minimally invasive robotic surgery for head and neck cancer that allows patients to return to their regular routine within days. For HPV-related throat cancers, this robotic surgery has an exceptionally high success rate.
- For breast cancer patients, Mount Sinai's leading-edge procedures and truly patient-centered approach provide innovative medical as well as emotional care. The Dubin Breast Center of the Tisch Cancer Institute is one of the first centers in the country to offer 3D mammography, allowing for earlier and more accurate breast cancer diagnosis. It is also one of only a handful of centers nationwide that offer seed localization, a new procedure that allows breast surgeons to more precisely target and remove breast tumors.
- Mount Sinai's Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) program is celebrating in 20th birthday this year and is the second-oldest and second-largest in New York City. The BMT program performed the first mismatched transplantation using non-ablative conditioning and is one of only a few programs in the country with an FDA-approved protocol for haplo-mismatched transplantation, a procedure that is particularly important for minority populations where finding matched unrelated donors can be difficult.
- For 20 years, Mount Sinai has been a pioneer in detecting early lung cancers. Mount Sinai developed an early lung screening protocol using low-dose CT scan that minimizes unnecessary additional testing and invasive procedures. Sixty other medical centers across the U.S. and around the world follow Mount Sinai's Lung Screening protocol.
- For patients with lung cancer, esophageal cancer, mesothelioma, thymoma, and sarcoma, the multispecialty team in Mount Sinai's Thoracic Oncology program offers endoscopy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery – with one of the lowest complication rates for esophagectomy for esophageal cancer in the U.S.
- Pathologists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered a subpopulation of cells that display cancer stem cell properties and resistance to chemotherapy, and participate in tumor progression. This breakthrough could lead to the development of new tests for early cancer diagnosis, prognostic tests, and innovative therapeutic strategies.
- Mount Sinai is also a leader in understanding the role of inflammation and the immune system in the development of cancer, and ways to harness the immune system to recognize cancer as an antigen and fight it off.
- Mount Sinai's Melanoma Medical Oncology Program is leading several high-profile clinical trials to test novel therapeutic approaches for melanoma, including an immunotherapy drug called CT-011 that targets a protein that plays a very important role in regulating the ability of the immune system to recognize a melanoma.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.
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