Comprehensive Cancer Center at Silver Cross Hospital to open June 25
Comprehensive Cancer Center at Silver Cross Hospital to open June 25
June 20, 2012
The University of Chicago Medicine and Silver Cross Hospital's $21.6 million outpatient cancer treatment center in New Lenox will open its doors to patients on Monday, June 25, 2012, nearly a year after the start of construction.
The 20,000-square-foot center, called the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center at Silver Cross Hospital, will bring University of Chicago academic specialists and their advanced and investigational therapies into a community-hospital setting. The new facility will provide state-of-the-art chemotherapy and radiation therapy, as well as access to hundreds of clinical trials. It also will offer a TrueBeamTM new-generation linear accelerator system, which delivers precisely targeted radiation therapy to provide the best results.
"This joint venture is an opportunity to bring a new level of care from one of the nation's leading cancer centers to a first-rate facility right here in the community," said Lawrence E. Schilder, DO, director of hematology/oncology at the new cancer center. "It means the people of our region will have extraordinary access to comprehensive standard-of-care and experimental cancer therapies."
Schilder, medical oncologists Sunil Narula, MD, and Brooke E. Phillips, MD, and radiation oncologist Anne McCall, MD, have joined the University of Chicago Medicine faculty as clinical associates to practice at the Silver Cross center. Medical center physicians Nita Karnik Lee, MD, and S. Diane Yamada, MD, will provide gynecologic oncology services at Silver Cross in conjunction with the center.
The University of Chicago Medicine has consistently ranked among the best cancer hospitals in the nation in U.S. News & World Report's annual survey. It is one of only two hospitals in Illinois designated a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute. The University of Chicago maintains the largest number of active clinical trials for the treatment of cancer in Illinois.
"We expect to bring a wide range of these trials to Silver Cross, including many developed by the physician scientists at the University of Chicago," said Richard L. Schilsky, MD, professor of medicine and section chief of hematology/oncology at the University of Chicago Medicine and past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. "Will County-area patients will also have access to clinical trials through national cooperative cancer research consortia, including the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, the Gynecology Oncology Group, the Children's Oncology Group, and the University of Chicago Phase II Consortium."
University of Chicago physicians hold leadership positions in many of these groups and have developed many of these multi-center trials.
The center is located in the Carolyn J. Czerkies Pavilion at 1850 Silver Cross Blvd., New Lenox, at I-355 and Route 6, To schedule an appointment, call 1-855-UCM-1400.
About Silver Cross Hospital
Silver Cross Hospital is a not-for-profit health care provider serving Will County and southwest suburban communities since 1895. Silver Cross has been recognized as a Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals National Award winner for seven years and one of America's Most Customer Friendly Hospitals by the American Alliance of Healthcare Providers. With more than 3,000 employees, physicians and volunteers, Silver Cross operates a 289-bed acute care hospital and 10 satellite facilities providing outpatient services and physician offices. The state-of-the-art replacement hospital in New Lenox opened on Feb. 26, 2012. To learn more about Silver Cross Hospital or a referral to a physician on staff, visit www.silvercross.org or call 1-888-660-HEAL (4325).
About the University of Chicago Medicine
The University of Chicago is home to world-class medical, research and teaching facilities where innovation has been a hallmark for decades. University of Chicago physician-scientists performed the first organ transplant and the first bone marrow transplant in animal models, the first successful living-donor liver transplant, the first hormone therapy for cancer and the first successful application of cancer chemotherapy. Its researchers also discovered REM sleep and were the first to describe several of the stages of sleep. Twelve of the 87 Nobel Prize winners associated with the University of Chicago have received the award for discoveries related to biology or medicine.
The University of Chicago's Biological Sciences Division and the Medical Center work together under the University of Chicago Medicine brand to teach and train future physicians, perform research and practice patient care. The Medical Center ranks among the best in the country in cancer treatment, digestive disorders, diabetes and endocrinology, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of the nation's hospitals. The University of Chicago Medicine's Comer Children's Hospital also is among the nation's leading children's hospitals, particularly in neonatology, gastroenterology and pulmonology. And the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine was named one of the Top 10 medical schools in the United States in U.S. News' 2012 graduate schools survey.