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The UC Davis Cancer Care Network is one of the first specialty-care networks in the nation to be linked with a public health institution. We are proud to offer our communities a unique model of care that marries compassionate, patient-centered treatment with the nationally regarded academic expertise and innovation of a major research university.
Through partnership and collaboration, we can offer patients:
- Enduring doctor-patient relationships
- Easier access to support from loved ones
- National Cancer Institute-designated expertise
- A nationally significant research program
- Extraordinary partnerships
- Additional depth of clinical experience
- Large clinical trials network
- Access to marrow donor programs
- Access to a variety of UC Davis specialists
- The healing power of diverse views and perspectives
- Support services
Enduring doctor-patient relationships
Patients at UC Davis Cancer Care Network cancer centers receive care in their own communities and from their own physicians, but with the added expertise and resources of the National Cancer Institute-designated UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Preserving existing doctor-patient relationships enables patients to remain with the health providers they feel comfortable with during a time of great personal stress. Because these professional relationships are carefully built over time, they often involve an extraordinary level of trust — especially valuable to patients facing difficult, life-changing questions and decisions.
A patient’s existing physician is familiar with their health history, preferences for different treatment approaches, overall life situation and the available level of outside support. This knowledge can help facilitate unique insights that improve treatments and outcomes.
Easier access to support from loved ones
Receiving treatment close to home makes it easier for patients to take advantage of crucial support from loved ones during the coping and healing process. Family members and friends who are only minutes away can lend help as caregivers to run errands, provide rides, look after children and help patients rest more comfortably. Being close to home allows a patient to build a larger team of active caregivers who can share these duties. At the same time, the disruptions of tests, treatments and appointments in the patient’s daily routine can be managed and reduced more easily.
Most importantly, family members and friends who live nearby can listen to a patient’s fears, share a laugh or hold their hand in person.
National Cancer Institute-designated expertise
As a National Cancer Institute center, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center is recognized as one of the finest cancer centers in the United States. The National Cancer Institute or “NCI” is a component of the National Institutes of Health, the primary federal medical research agency. The NCI is the world’s leading authority on cancer treatment and research, and it considers its designated cancer centers "major sources of new knowledge relating to the nature of cancer, and of new and more effective approaches to prevention, diagnosis and therapy” that may not be available elsewhere.
To win the prestigious NCI designation, a cancer center must prove itself capable of making a major contribution to the nation's war on cancer. Only 65 of the nation’s approximately 6,300 hospitals have completed the designation process, which typically takes years.
A nationally significant research program
UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center’s $75 million cancer research program includes nearly 300 scientists at work on hundreds of research projects at any one time. Our light physicists, biomedical engineers and oncologists partner with experts in dozens of other fields.
UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center members are distributed widely across disciplines at UC Davis, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the USDA Western Human Nutrition Research Center, and the California Department of Health Services, Division of Cancer Control. The center also offers significant participation from scientists elsewhere in UC Davis including the School of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the School of Engineering (the Biomedical Engineering Program).
Additional depth of clinical experience
UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center cares for more than 9,000 adults and children each year, and receives more than 24,000 visits annually. Specialized teams of doctors from many different disciplines work together to develop the ideal treatment or combination of treatments for each patient. They offer this additional body of multidisciplinary expertise as an additional resource for the talented physicians at network member cancer centers.
UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center is home to a large clinical trials network. The trials are designed to answer specific medical questions, such as the effectiveness of a promising investigational drug. Only the most promising new treatments make it to clinical trials, and they can offer new drugs and breakthrough treatments before they become widely available.
Cancer patients decide to participate in clinical trials for many reasons, usually because they hope for a cure, a longer lifespan, an improved quality of life or to benefit other cancer patients in the future.
Access to marrow donor programs
UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center is the inland Northern California region's only Marrow Donor Transplant Program Center, ensuring immediate access to potential donors from around the world.
Access to a variety of UC Davis specialists
Patients at the Cancer Care Network sites can be referred to specialty and subspecialty services that are unique to UC Davis or that may not always be in the local community. For example, a patient with breast cancer may be referred to a thoracic oncologist for a suspicious spot in her lung. For a list of specialties, click here.
The healing power of diverse views and perspectives
Teams of as many as two dozen network oncologists, radiologists, urologists and surgeons can meet to discuss patient cases, ask key questions and explore options. In these “virtual tumor board” meetings they share patient cases and outcomes, related research they have conducted or reviewed, treatment options they can offer and new medications that could help, including innovative therapies available through clinical trials.
UC Davis Cancer Care Network member centers offer support groups, resource libraries and other support services. For example, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center offers the Writing as Healing program, Triumph Fitness classes, support groups and other patient-centered programs. Click here to see more patient and family resources.
Find out more
For more information about bringing the UC Davis Cancer Care Network to your community, contact Kay Harse at (916) 734-5977 or kay.harse@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu.