UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center named among top 10 cancer centers in nation

UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center is ranked among the top 10 cancer centers in the nation, according to a U.S. News & World Report survey of board-certified physicians from across the country. The survey reviewed patient outcomes, the cancer center's reputation among physicians, mortality rates and other care-related factors.

Overall, UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center ranked 6th in the nation, the highest placement it has achieved on the survey. Of the three other California cancer centers listed in the top 20, the University of California San Francisco ranked 9th, Stanford Hospital and Clinics in Palo Alto ranked 10th and City of Hope in Duarte ranked 13th.

The ranking is included in the magazine's 2015-16 guide to America's "Best Hospitals," available online and will be featured in the August print issue of U.S. News & World Report. The centers that rank highest in the survey often are those that treat the sickest patients and focus on translational research.

The Jonsson Cancer Center has gained an international reputation for taking leading-edge laboratory research and translating it into new and more effective treatments in the clinic. In a historic year for the center, UCLA researchers have pioneered three therapies recently approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, including Keytruda for melanoma, Cyramza for lung cancer and IBRANCE for breast cancer.

Other successful targeted therapies such as Herceptin, Avastin, Tarceva, Gleevec and Sprycel were developed based on research conducted in cancer center laboratories or in clinical research with UCLA patients.

Judith C. Gasson, the cancer center's director and a professor of medicine and biological chemistry, said the U.S. News ranking reflects the innovative basic and clinical research being done at the center and the outstanding medical care available to patients with cancer at UCLA.

"The Jonsson Cancer Center has established an international reputation for developing targeted cancer therapies and providing leading-edge experimental treatments," Gasson said. "We have worked and will continue to work very hard to translate basic science discoveries into better diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cancer."

The top 10 cancer centers in the nation, according to the U.S. News rankings, are MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX (1); Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY (2); Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN (3); Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center, Boston, MA (4); University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, WA (5); UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA (6, tie); Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD (6, tie); Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA (8); University of California, San Francisco Medical Center (9); and Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Stanford, CA (10).