A Comprehensive Cancer Center Designated by the National Cancer Institute
Ranked in the top 1% of all hospitals in the nation for cancer care according to U.S. News & World Report. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) decision to designate Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center as an NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center is a testament to the strength of our exceptional science and extraordinary multidisciplinary care.
Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center brings significant cancer-focused basic, clinical, translational, and population science—and transdisciplinary research bridging these sciences—to our Bronx neighborhood and beyond. Along with our Cancer Center’s robust education and training initiatives, we proudly serve as a national model for community outreach, engagement, and cancer health equity, with a special focus on under-represented patient groups.
We are deeply honored to be recognized for the unique and special contributions of our cancer center in the NCI’s portfolio of comprehensive cancer centers.
Edward Chu, MD, MMS
Vice President, Cancer Medicine, Montefiore Einstein, Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center
Role of the National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is part of the federal government’s National Institutes for Health (NIH). The NCI is the main source of funding for cancer research and training in the United States and around the globe. It aims to find ways to better prevent, detect, and diagnose cancer as well as improve the life of cancer survivors.
The NCI visits and evaluates many cancer centers around the country for “NCI Designation” on a rolling basis that determines status and government funding levels. As part of this process, cancer experts from peer institutions visit and perform an extensive evaluation of each site. The subset it designates as “Comprehensive” are cancer centers the team has confirmed meet several specific criteria.
Power of an NCI “Comprehensive Cancer Center” Designation
NCI “Comprehensive” designation is awarded to just 1% of all cancer centers around the country and is considered the NCI’s ultimate institutional honor. It is a recognition of the center’s scientific and clinical leadership, breadth of investigation in basic, clinical, and population-based science, and its ability to effectively educate and train the next generation of cancer researchers and clinicians.
Patients who come to an NCI cancer center that has been designated “Comprehensive” can expect:
- access to leading-edge, personalized cancer treatments
- the possibility of enrollment in clinical trials, many of which offer leading-edge treatments unavailable elsewhere
- personalized and compassionate care from doctors who are closely collaborating with researchers that are exploring new ways to detect, prevent, and treat cancer.
We Are a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center
MECCC is honored to be recognized for our unique and special contributions as one of the nation’s 56 comprehensive cancer centers.
As a cancer center with this designation, our providers, investigators, faculty and staff, and patients and friends in the community will ultimately benefit. We receive extra funding from the NCI for research, training, and outreach efforts, have even greater opportunities to collaborate with other institutions on research in the laboratory and the clinic. Empowered to further develop new treatments, new screening and diagnostic tools, we can continue to work to improve equitable access and outcomes for patients using evidenced-based medicine. The comprehensive designation also makes us more attractive as a place for top scientists and physicians to work.
Read more about our new designation, announced in September 2023, is in this press release.
Our cancer center was the fourth NCI cancer center to be established in the U.S. (in 1972)
but this is the first time that we have been fully recognized as an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.
See our evolution in the Historical Timeline.
As a comprehensive cancer center, we oversee the spectrum of strong science to patient care.
- Learn more about the transformative research taking place in our laboratories and more than 320 active clinical trials.
- Learn more about the more than 200 types of cancer we treat.
