Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s Comprehensive Cancer Center is marking 50 years of National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation.
In 1974, the NCI, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, first designated the Wake Forest Baptist cancer center, following the creation of the NCI Cancer Centers Program as part of the National Cancer Act of 1971. In 1990, Wake Forest Baptist received one of the nation’s first NCI designations as a comprehensive cancer center.
Today, the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center is the only NCI-designated center in western North Carolina and fuels Atrium Health Levine Cancer with its innovation and research. This integrated cancer program, which combines Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute, is the largest in the Carolinas and is supported by Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
Of the more than 1,000 cancer programs in the U.S., only 57 are NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers, such as Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s. These centers are recognized for their leadership and resources, delivery of leading-edge cancer treatments and the breadth and depth of research in the areas of basic, clinical, prevention, cancer control and population science.
“Receiving and maintaining NCI designation requires significant resources, specialized expertise and immense dedication from leadership and the entire multidisciplinary team,” said Dr. Ruben Mesa, executive director of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and president of Atrium Health Levine Cancer.
“As an academic learning health system, our scientists work directly with our clinicians, the NCI, other academic institutions and industry partners to expand access to clinical trials and rapidly discover new and effective treatments and provide them to our patients, often months or years ahead of non-NCI cancer centers,” said Mesa, who is also the vice dean of cancer programs and a professor of hematology and oncology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
Decades before receiving NCI designation, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center was a pioneer in cancer care, becoming, in 1957, the first hospital in North Carolina to use cobalt to treat cancer patients, and, in 1969, the first in the nation to use ultrasound to detect prostate cancer.
In 1990, after 16 years of NCI designation, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist became an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of only 24 in the nation at the time. Later that year, the blood and marrow transplant program began, which was the second in North Carolina.
Since then, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center has made history with a number of notable milestones, including:
- 1999 – the first in North Carolina to use Gamma Knife – a no-incision alternative to traditional brain surgery that pinpoints tiny beams of radiation without harming healthy tissue.
- 2001 – the first in the world to use the newly FDA-approved GliaSite Radiation Therapy System – a liquid source of radiation, delivered through a balloon catheter, to treat brain cancer. In 1999, Wake Forest University School of Medicine was one of five NCI-funded institutions that conducted clinical trials of GliaSite.
- 2004 – the freestanding outpatient cancer center building opened with new surgical oncology, radiation oncology and medical oncology clinics.
- 2013 – the six-story addition to the cancer center opened, with expanded inpatient cancer services.
- 2016 – the first in the nation to offer the DigniCap scalp cooling system, which allows patients to keep more of their hair while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Wake Forest University School of Medicine conducted the initial feasibility study in 2010 with the University of California San Francisco.
- 2020 – Wake Forest Baptist Health (including Wake Forest University School of Medicine) and Atrium Health joined together as a single enterprise.
- 2022 – With a shared commitment to excellence, leaders began laying the groundwork for teams at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s Comprehensive Cancer Center and Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute to unite.
- 2023 – Cancer care services at Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist were unified as one cancer service line, Atrium Health Levine Cancer, the largest cancer program in the Carolinas, and fueled by the research and innovation of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.
- 2023 – Atrium Health Levine Cancer began installation of a state-of-the-art proton accelerator unit which will play a pivotal role in advancing cancer care across the region.
Today, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist is one of only 57 NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the nation and, together with Atrium Health Levine Cancer, serves patients in more than 30 counties across North Carolina and South Carolina.
“It is certainly inspiring to reflect on all the advancements in cancer care over the past 50 years,” Mesa said. “At the same time, we look forward to seeing what can be accomplished in the next 50 years. We have never been more committed to finding new treatments, training cancer providers, reducing health disparities, supporting survivorship and working together to defeat cancer and reduce the burden in our communities, across the nation and around the world.”
Media contacts:
Jenna Kurzyna, jkurzyna@wakehealth.edu; Joe McCloskey, jmcclosk@wakehealth.edu