Does anyone here have any suggestions of where to go in the United States for the best treatment for cancer?

MD Anderson is the best known that I am aware of.

edit:: I’ll add that my aunt who is an internist elected to go there for breast cancer treatment, which has been successful so far (2–3 years, I think).

I hear MD Anderson in Houston is the best out there. But Kevbo beat me to it. I’ll give you the link mdanderson.org/cancer_centers/

Hey, it didn’t link. http://www.mdanderson.org/

There are a number of outstanding cancer centers, and MD Anderson is just one of them. See below for my other top recommendations:

Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC
Dana Farber in Boston
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle
The Kimmel Center at Johns Hopkins
The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota

For even more listings, check out the US News rankings for cancer treatment.

university of chicago

I’m in California, and I know that UCLA, USC, and Stanford all have very good cancer treatment centers. I’ve known several people who have been treated at each, sad to say.

Here’s a list of the best cancer treatment centers in the U.S.
http://www.cancerlinksusa.com/centers.htm

Good luck to you!

I have heard the University of Oregon is great for skin cancer.

Solca is the best hospital for cancer treatment in south america, is in Ecuador and the treatment won’t leave you broke

communication is awful at Stanford

I’ve had friends who have had horrible experiences at Sloan/Kettering; the Oncologists treated them like research materials rather than cancer patients. They went to Dana Farber and felt happier and less stressed. My cousin is being treated for Multiple Myeloma at S/K. She calls her Onc. Doctor “Nasty.”

I made my choice of treatment location after three opinions; all told me (kindly) that I had “garden variety breast cancer” and I would have the same treatment nearby. That was good advice because I would have found the stress of traveling very difficult. (Over 12 years in remission.) “Garden-variety” implies that your surgeon, Onc., and Radiation Oncologist have seen and treated thousands of the same type of cancer.

Good luck to you. If you really like and trust your doctor, rather than shuddering when s/he walks into the room, it helps make the treatment more bearable.

Frederick, Maryland has lots of cancer research & treatment centers, some affiliated with Fort Detrick.

Dana Farber is great if you are on the East coast. However, I would argue that BEST is not the goal – there are tons of highly respected and qualified docs that can help and the pursuit of best is only going to be disappointing. I suggest you check with your most local medical school and in particular, ask a family medicine resident who they think is best in your area. Traveling across country isn’t really going to add anything to your care. Most cancer is treated by a “tumor board” anyway and not by any one individual doc. They all share up-to-date information and use a sharing of information to establish best practice treatment. Things are looking better with the advent of the human genome project. If you are into wholistic treatment, check in with Andrew Weill and his colleagues for things you (or the patient) can do for yourself to enhance and in some cases to counter the medical treatments. The most important thing is to have someone you feel comfortable with and can establish a rapport. If they are cold and clinical, throw the bastard out.

the james at osu (columbus, oh) always seems to get high ratings. a coworker and her husband were treated there for different kinds of cancer. they volunteer and are active in support groups there.

You want to go to a place that has volume in doing this surgery, but you also want to go to a place you can easily go back to if needed. You have to balance the more accurate care you would get in an absolute center of excellence with the more coordinated care you would get in a place your primary care physician or primary oncologist can easily interact with and get information. If you life close to a major academic medical center, I would choose your local AMC over traveling long distances for care. Again if you have a local specialist that has sufficient volume, the likelihood that you will gain much from a distant more specialized center in terms of technical expertise is smaller than the likelihood of loosing something from receiving less coordinated care.