IMPORTANT NUMBERS:

OVERVIEW
Established in 1992, the Cancer Center at St. Luke's is accredited by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons and recently received the Outstanding Achievement Award for top performance. St. Luke's 2009 Cancer Center Annual Report (PDF )

THE PERFECT MATCH: PERSONALIZED CARE AND WORLD-CLASS TECHNOLOGY
The Cancer Center at St. Luke’s offers to patients the best in personalized cancer care within a private hospital setting.  Experienced physicians who are cancer specialists in private practice and academic physicians from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Medical School at Houston employ a full range of  leading-edge diagnostic technologies and standard-of-care, effective current therapies for patients.  Hospital-based subspecialists in pathology, radiology, anesthesiology, emergency medicine and other disciplines provide a continuum of services throughout the patient’s treatment experience.  St. Luke’s Magnet Award-winning nursing staff is compassionate, skilled, and professional.  St. Luke’s places priority on each patient who enters our care.  Our commitment is to treat the whole patient—body, mind and spirit.

SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY 
The Cancer Center provides a full complement of radiation therapy services located one mile from the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas at the St. Luke’s Radiation Therapy and CyberKnife® Facility (view map).  All parking is complimentary at this facility. 

Technology includes:

• CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System:  The new CyberKnife® System is an advanced robotic radiosurgery technology with a continual image guidance system that delivers unprecedented targeting accuracy and a unique ability to automatically correct for intra-fraction target motion without interrupting the treatment or having to reposition the patient.  The beams move in real time with 3D respiratory motion.  The system provides unparalleled healthy tissue preservation.  Typically requiring only five or fewer outpatient visits, the CyberKnife System offers many cancer patients an effective and pain-free alternative to surgery and other prolonged, time-consuming therapies. Learn more about our Cyberknife® System.
  
• Trilogy Image-Guided Radiation Therapy:  The Trilogy system is the first in a new generation of cancer care systems. A versatile system optimized for multiple forms of treatment, from radiation therapy to radiosurgery.  The versatile Trilogy system delivers 3D conformal radiotherapy, IMRT, stereotactic radiosurgery, fractionated stereotactic radiation therapy, and intensity-modulated radiosurgery for cancer and neurosurgical treatment.   Learn more about our Radiation Therapy.
  
• Varian Clinac Model 21EX Linear Accelerator (IMRT):  Intensity modulated radiation therapy. 

Diagnostic and Treatment Technology at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and Outpatient Centers:

• Open MRI at St. Luke’s Radiation Therapy and CyberKnife® facility 
  
• Three Radiation Therapy Units:  CyberKnife®, Trilogy and IMRT Linear Accelerator
• PET/CT Technology (fused metabolic images and anatomic images)
• Siemens CT-Scanners – 4-, 16-, and 64-Slice; GE 8- and 16-Slice in Radiation Oncology
• Siemens High Field Strength 3 Tesla MRI Scanner
• Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)
• DaVinci Robotic Surgery
• Digital Mammography
• Breast MRI following ACoS Guidelines
• Radiofrequency Ablation
• State-of-the-art operating room suites and dedicated inpatient surgical units to consolidate specialized care for breast, colorectal, lung, gastrointestinal, and other surgery
• Sentinel lymph node mapping for breast surgery and for melanoma
• Stereotactic biopsy and fine-needle biopsy
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
• Laparoscopic surgical procedures
• Mastectomy with immediate reconstructive surgery
• Breast conservation surgery
• Targeted cancer therapies
• Chemotherapy, biochemotherapy, hormone therapy, chemoprevention
• Clinical Research Trials and Gene Therapy Research
• 34-bed Oncology Inpatient Care Unit at St. Luke’s staffed by oncology-certified nurses
• 13-private chairs in the Oncology Outpatient Infusion Center with oncology-certified nurses,  located one-mile from the Texas Medical Center.  Free parking.

CANCER REGISTRY
The St. Luke’s Cancer Registry has a database of over 34,062 diagnosed cases since the reference date of 1992 at St. Luke’s.  The most current data reveal that the registry abstracted 2,552 cancer cases and had a 92% follow-up rate on former cancer patients.  The Registry reports statistical data to the National Cancer Data Base and the Texas Department of Health State Cancer Registry.  The statistics are used for cancer research, to monitor survival statistics and to improve the standard of care in disease recurrence.  The Cancer Registry also organizes the 12 tumor boards per month at St. Luke’s, promoting multidisciplinary care for our cancer patients.

OUR STAFF
Board-certified medical oncologists and hematologists, surgeons, radiation oncologists, pathologists, and radiologists are on staff at St. Luke’s and are actively involved with their patients.   Oncology Nursing Society-certified and oncology-certified registered nurses provide excellent, professional care.

RESEARCH
The Philip A. Salem Chair in Cancer Research was  established with $2.5 million in philanthropic gifts.  As the Director of Cancer Research at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, Dr. Salem presently holds the chair and upon his retirement, he will assist St. Luke’s in recruiting his successor.  Dr.  Salem has been the Director of Cancer Research at the Cancer Center at St. Luke’s since 1992.  During this time he was
responsible for the hospital actively participating in the Texas Community Oncology Network, a cooperative research program with M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. 

More than 30 cancer research treatment protocols were available to St. Luke’s physicians for their patients from 1992-1999.  The first and second National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel historic breast cancer prevention trials were made available to St. Luke’s patients from 1995-2006 through Dr. Salem’s guidance and leadership.   He was the recipient of a $200,000 grant from the Dallas chapter of the American Cancer Society in 2008 to support cancer research and mentor young research investigators.  His grant has funded a full time cancer research nurse for the Cancer Center at St. Luke’s as well as clinical research.

CLINICAL TRIALS
The Cancer Center offers patients access to frontline cancer research by providing clinical trials led by physician investigators specializing in oncology.  Investigators offer national clinical studies, as well as original hospital-based studies.  Contact St. Luke’s Cancer Research Program Office at 832-355-6777 if you have questions. Learn more about our clinical trials.

SUPPORT SYSTEM AND SURVIVORSHIP
St. Luke’s Nutritional Service and Dietitians
St. Luke’s Social Service and Case Management
St. Luke’s Oncology Auxiliary Volunteers
St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Service (Lymphadenopathy Therapy)
St. Luke’s Chaplain Service and Chapel – all denominations
CanCare (www.cancare.org)
American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org)
National Cancer Institute (www.cancer.gov)
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (www.leukemia-lymphoma.org)
Susan G. Komen for the Cure (www.komen-houston.org)
Pink Ribbons Project (www.pinkribbons.org)

LEARN MORE ABOUT
CyberKnife® Radiosurgery Indications (PDF )
Our Cyberknife® System
Our Radiation Therapy
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