New oncology unit launched
By Claire Makepeace
March 5, 2009 10:58 p.m.
Plans are currently being finalized for a new facility for the UCLA Institute of Urologic Oncology, focusing on the development of new treatments for urologic cancers.
The new building for the institute should be completed in approximately three years’ time, said Dr. Allan Pantuck, associate professor of urology at UCLA.
Currently, patients are treated at the Frank Clark Urology Center, which is headed by the David Geffen School of Medicine, said Glenda Hale, chief administrative officer at the Center.
The new facility will supplement and build upon the treatment currently offered at the Geffen School.
At the new center, patients will have access to specialists ““ including surgeons, physicians and radiation oncologists ““ who will be centrally located to give diagnosis and treatment, Pantuck said.
“We will provide a “˜one-stop shop’ where patients can be treated by experts in every different field,” said Dr. Arie Belldegrun, professor of urology and director of the new institute. “As science and medicine advance and get more complicated, more and more options for treatment become available, which can be very confusing for patients.”
Pantuck said that the formation of the institute will provide a forum for clinicians to combine knowledge from their different fields of expertise in order to develop new treatments and to conduct experimental research.
The research and urological treatment will be strengthened once the new building is built, he added.
Hale said that the proximity of specialists from different fields of oncology will strengthen care.
The specialists will make it easier and more convenient for patients to be diagnosed and get the treatment that they need.
“With this new approach, we are hoping to significantly move treatment forward,” Pantuck said.
The Center of Urology is operated by UCLA Medical Sciences.
According to Pantuck, the new institute will be constructed at the corner of Westwood Boulevard, adjunct to the Jules Stein Eye Institute and opposite from the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
A day-long symposium was held at the Medical Center on Monday, March 3 in order to officially introduce the institute.
The symposium featured guest speakers prominent in urologic oncology, including Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, former director of the National Cancer Institute.
Experts such as Eschenbach will be featured at the institute from all different fields of oncologic treatment, including urologic oncology, medical oncology, diagnostic and interventional radiology, pathology, nursing and clinical trials, according to a UCLA statement.
The institute aims to improve current therapies including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and minimally invasive and ablative surgery.
