UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center

UCSF Helen Diller Cancer Center’s Tradition of Excellence

The University of California’s San Francisco (UCSF) campus is exclusively dedicated to patient care, medical education and specialized health research.

UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center provides exceptional care for patients diagnosed with mesothelioma and a myriad other malignancies. It includes a mixture of patient care, clinical research, basic science and epidemiology and cancer control, fueling a long tradition of excellence.

The center is spread across five medical centers in the San Francisco area, combining to form one of the most complete cancer institutions in America. It is the only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer institute in Northern California.

UCSF medical facilities include:

The Mission Bay campus opened in 2014, the newest of the cancer care facilities, allowing the cancer center to now serve almost 1,000 inpatients each day.

Cutting-Edge Mesothelioma Treatment at UCSF

At the Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, mesothelioma patients can benefit from the thoracic surgery and oncology ward. David Jablons, M.D., professor and chief of the Section of General Thoracic Surgery, earned a grant from the National Institutes of Health for his investigation of a pathway used in the treatment of mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma specialists Thierry Jahan, M.D., and Shayne Cardozo, a lung surgery nurse coordinator who specializes in mesothelioma, are also employed at the UCSF Cancer Center.

Under the supervision of these specialists and their colleagues, patients with asbestos-related diseases can receive care that optimizes their chances of survival, including imaging scans, biopsies, surgeries and palliative care.

Radiation oncology is also a major clinic at the UCSF Medical Center, where mesothelioma patients may visit if referred by their primary physician. Offered at the Mount Zion and Parnassus campuses, the radiation oncology wards incorporate evidence-based medicine with emergent-care techniques. Treatments featured at the UCSF department of radiation oncology include gamma knife radiation therapy and intensity-modulated radiation therapy.

UCSF patients benefit from the leading technologies created and utilized at the medical center. This includes more than 600 patents for medical advancements in the past two decades, indicating a high focus on delivering cutting-edge technologies and procedures to patients.

For years UCSF has been a leading public recipient of research support from the National Institutes of Health. It also receives upwards of $166 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Currently, UCSF is involved with roughly 1,000 investigative clinical trials.

UCSF’s Research Leadership

UCSF has been a leader in research support from the National Institutes of Health for many years. Cancer research from all sources coming to UCSF has reached $248 million annually.

For more than a decade, UCSF has been listed among the top 15 centers nationally in the U.S. News & World Report annual rankings. Elsevier, a publisher of medical and scientific journals, ranks UCSF as one of the top five centers in the world for published cancer research and impact.

Uniting some of the nation’s leading specialists with breakthrough treatments and unique clinical trials, UCSF is fully prepared to offer mesothelioma patients some of the best medical care in the country.

Clinical Trials for Mesothelioma at UCSF