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Huntsman Cancer Institute

Contact Information

2000 Circle of Hope Salt Lake City, UT 84112
(801) 585-0303

The Huntsman Cancer Institute is on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. In conjunction with university staff and graduate students, the physicians at the Huntsman Cancer Institute take part in cancer-related research as well as provide patient care based on this research. The Huntsman Cancer Institute is proud to be a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center, which means they receive funding and support from the NCI. Adults who have all types of cancer receive treatment either as outpatients or in the 50-bed hospital.

In recent years, Salt Lake City has been at the forefront of genetic and medical research. The Huntsman Cancer Institute was founded in 1995 with the help of a generous donation from the Jon Huntsman family of Utah who had hopes of helping to create one of the best cancer centers in the world.

The goal of the Huntsman Cancer Institute is to understand everything there is to know about cancer from its onset. With this knowledge, they strive to create new treatments and to improve on existing treatments for cancer, to make the quality of life for cancer patients better, and to educate as many people as they can about the risks, prevention, and care of cancer. One of their main research areas is centered on genetic studies as well as family and population studies so that they can better understand the entire process of cancer in order to develop new ways to combat it.

One of Huntsman’s research programs is called Imaging, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics (IDT). This program is supported by a special grant and is geared towards developing and validating new ways of imaging to improve diagnosis, thereby speeding up a treatment determination and thus the care of the patient. Another aspect of the IDT program is creating unique ways to diagnose cancer and at the same time predict the cancer’s progression in order to improve the long-term care provided to the patient. IDT also concentrates on developing new drugs and clinical trials.

The Huntsman Cancer Institute has what is known as a Center for Investigational Therapeutics. It practices a “bench to bedside” method for treating cancer. What this means is that scientists work in the laboratory to develop new therapies for cancer while at the same time working with the oncologists in the patient care arena to determine what the best and safest dosages are for each patient.

This bench to bedside philosophy ultimately results in clinical trials to test the new drugs on cancer patients who volunteer for these new treatments. The institute conducts a number of different types of clinical trials such as those that test new procedures for diagnosing cancer; trials like those mentioned above that test new drugs, alternative surgeries or radiation therapy; or different combinations of these treatments.

They also conduct trials based on attaining and maintaining a good quality of life for their patients. An example of this is clinical trials they conduct for lung cancer research, including treatments for mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer caused by extended exposure to asbestos. Mesothelioma has no cure and these clinical trials concentrate on prolonging the patient’s life while making them more comfortable.