About Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center
Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center has become a global authority in cancer by combining expert care with deep science.
Our mission is clear:
- To ensure that all patients receive the finest cancer care in the nation derived from outstanding research, constant innovation, compassion and sharing of our data, knowledge and expertise.
- To deeply engage and support the patients and communities we serve in achieving cancer health equity.
- To educate, train and mentor the next generation of diverse cancer physicians, scientists and healthcare providers.
At Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, we are expanding the world's understanding of how cancer begins and grows, developing new methods of prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment, and bringing those innovations to all people with cancer. We believe in a center without walls that addresses unmet needs and eliminates cancer care disparities for all.
The nation's only three-site National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center contributes to the National Cancer Plan and provides state-of-the-art care today while developing the care of tomorrow. The NCI recognizes Comprehensive Cancer Centers for "their leadership and resources, in addition to demonstrating an added depth and breadth of research, as well as substantial transdisciplinary research that bridges these scientific areas."
Nationally ranked
A century of transforming cancer care
Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center is part of the largest integrated, not-for-profit medical group practice in the world. For more than 150 years, Mayo Clinic has consistently pioneered medical innovations, including for cancer. Since the Mayo brothers opened our doors, we have been developing the treatments that have become standard of care around the world — and we're not done yet.
More than 100 years ago, Mayo Clinic doctors revolutionized cancer surgery by creating a technique to quickly identify cancer cells while a patient was still in the operating room. If the sample revealed cancerous tissue, the surgeon could continue to operate, removing as much of the cancer as possible. Frozen section pathology remains a key tool for patients around the world today.
Mayo Clinic also developed the system for grading tumors on a numerical basis, stages 1-4, ranging from least to greatest malignancy. This system helps physicians determine the severity of a patient's condition as well as how quickly a tumor is likely to grow and spread. Our "Broders' Index" evolved to become foundational for staging, grading and biomarker assessments that improve cancer care. The system has been adopted by medical centers throughout the world, helping establish consistent standards in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Beyond cancer care, Mayo Clinic helped determine the insulin dosages for people with diabetes, had the first series of successful open-heart operations in the world, invented the intensive care unit, offered the first CAT scanner in North America and earned the Nobel Prize for the discovery of cortisone.
But perhaps our greatest contribution to medicine is the Mayo Model of Care, which provides unmatched experience for our patients each day. This guiding principle puts the needs of the patient at the center of everything we do. It defines our care and requires multidisciplinary collaboration. Our specialists work together, uniting diverse skills for the benefit of each patient and continuously advancing the standard of care through education and research.
Today, the Mayo Model of Care compels us to continue our tradition of innovation. We believe in doing what's never been done. From groundbreaking treatments to personalized care enhanced through new innovations such as AI and 3D printing, we have the skills, the people and the ideas to continue transforming cancer care.
Learn more about Mayo Clinic.
Renowned cancer experts
Every day, more than 400 outstanding Mayo Clinic physicians and scientists dedicate themselves to finding answers for the unmet medical needs of people with cancer. From medical engineers focused on devices, to mathematicians who develop models predicting treatment impact, Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center brings experts from all specialties together, focused on you and your cancer.
We organize our team by research programs and disease groups, such as cancer types or locations within the body. Our researchers benefit from access to technology and resources that promote maximum efficiency for developing research concepts, proposals, grants and trials.
To be a faculty member of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, researchers must maintain cancer-relevant, peer-reviewed grants and publish their findings in high-quality peer-reviewed professional journals. Faculty members collaborate with each other through research projects, regular meetings, retreats and lecture series.
Faculty members advance the center's goals of ensuring a diverse research community by mentoring young scientists through the Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination program and collaborating with Community Outreach and Engagement to meet community priorities and needs.
