A new Center for Interventional Oncology has been established at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (CC). It offers new and expanded opportunities to investigate cancer therapies that use imaging technology to diagnose and treat localized cancers in ways that are precisely targeted and minimally or noninvasive.
The center is a collaboration involving the CC, NIH's clinical research hospital in Bethesda, Md., the National Cancer Institute, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Bradford Wood, M.D., a CC senior investigator, is chief of the new center. "The Center for Interventional Oncology will help foster advances in an emerging field for minimally invasive, imageguided methods for treating localized cancers," he said. "It will also help bridge the gap between emerging technology and the everyday practice of medicine. Advanced imaging methods have ushered in an era of early detection of cancers that are frequently localized to a single organ. Today, oncology treatments typically use systemic therapies such as chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, which are wellsuitedfor widespread disease, but may also cause widespread side effects."
The new center is intended to provide a forum for and encourage collaborations among research and patient-care experts in medical, surgical, and radiation oncology and interventional radiology, noted John I. Gallin, M.D., CC director. "The Clinical Center provides an exceptional environment for this type of collaborative research and patient care."
