A Message from the Director
Welcome to the University of Mississippi Cancer Institute (UMMCI). The state of Mississippi is disproportionately affected by cancer. Among U.S. states, we rank at or near the top in mortality from some of the most common cancers, such as prostate, breast, lung and colorectal cancer. To meet this challenge, the University of Mississippi has created a top-notch team of health care professionals and scientists dedicated to a single goal: to fight cancer. I have the privilege of leading this team, and I am completely devoted to the task of building a Cancer Institute that will be a national and international leader in the field.
Cancer is not a single disease. It is literally hundreds of different diseases that affect patients, their families and our community in many ways. Such an enemy must be fought with many different weapons.
The first line of defense is prevention, and prevention begins with education. Understanding the factors that predispose to cancer in our behavior, our environment and sometimes our very genes is key to decreasing the burden of cancer. The UMMCI is leading efforts in cancer prevention through the ACT Tobacco Cessation and our joint effort with the Mississippi Cancer Registry and Mississippi Health Department. We will increase our efforts in outreach and patient education across the state and join forces with other leading academic medical centers in the South to promote cancer prevention. We will also offer educational opportunities for primary care providers across the state. Through this website, you will be able to find links to educational resources to help you learn about cancer risk factors and lifestyle changes that may help you reduce your risk.
A healthy lifestyle decreases your likelihood of developing cancer. However, even with our best efforts, not all cancers are preventable. The next best line of defense is screening and early diagnosis. Today, a cancer diagnosed at an early stage is often cured. The same cancer diagnosed at a more advanced stage can be much more difficult to treat, and may be fatal. Some of the most common cancers often can be detected by simple screening procedures, such as pap smears, mammograms or colonoscopies. Educating our public on the importance of cancer screening and offering state-of-the-art screening services are fundamental components of our mission. In this website you will find information on how to be screened for common cancers in one of our clinics.
Once a cancer is diagnosed, it must be treated aggressively. University Cancer Care, our team of highly dedicated surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists, pathologists and allied health care professionals, offer state-of-the-art treatment for adult and pediatric malignancies. We have trained most oncologists practicing in Mississippi today, and through our Hematology-Oncology fellowship program and our residency program in Radiation Oncology, we are training the cancer care specialists of tomorrow. Our facilities are equipped with the latest technology, from an instrument that can literally count single cancer cells in a patient's blood to the latest prostate cancer vaccine to one of few high-resolution PET/CT instruments in the world. But most importantly, our physicians, nurses and staff care deeply about our patients. Many of us are UMMC patients ourselves or have loved ones who are patients. Our doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals are committed to being at your service.
Cancer diagnosis and treatment today is extraordinarily complex, and it is best carried out by a multidisciplinary team of specialists all committed to a specific type of cancer. For each major organ site, we have formed interdisciplinary teams including all relevant specialists. Rather than having individual doctors forming different opinions about each patient, our teams discuss every new patient as a group and jointly formulate a treatment plan that considers all aspects of treatment. From bone marrow transplantation to state-of-the-art breast care, we offer high-tech care with a human touch.
We are also partnering with the American Cancer Society to support a Patient Navigator who will assist you in all aspects of your interaction with our health care teams and other services offered by the ACS. Through this website, you will be able to find the interdisciplinary teams that specialize in different types of cancer, and should you wish to do so, schedule an appointment to see them.
Our job does not end at the end of treatment. There is life after cancer, and we are committed to supporting cancer survivors and their families by referring them to physicians in the community and other resources that can help survivors return to a fully productive life.
Even the best current treatments are not always enough. There is still much we don't know about cancer, and innovation and discovery are a key part of the mission of an academic medical center. We are constantly investigating new treatments by offering our patients access to clinical trials of the most promising investigational drugs. Our physicians are studying ways to offer radiation treatments within a few days instead of weeks. At the same time, our scientists are busy discovering tomorrow's rationally targeted cancer drugs and bringing them to the clinic. From peptides that selectively seek tumors to novel drugs that selectively kill the elusive "cancer stem cells" that cause cancers to recur after treatment, our scientists are at the forefront of discovery.
We have embarked on a multi-year plan to build a large contingent of top-notch cancer researchers and support them with state-of-the-art infrastructure, including the latest informatics platforms. Our researchers will focus on three broad areas: 1) Cancer genetics (the genes that may predispose certain individuals to cancer or cause patients to respond to certain drugs but not others); 2) tumor cell biology (the mechanisms of cancer progression); and 3) experimental therapeutics (the development of new agents for the prevention and treatment of cancer). In this endeavor, we are strengthening our partnership with the outstanding School of Pharmacy at Ole Miss in Oxford and with other academic Cancer Centers throughout the South and the country. Through this website, you will be able to follow our progress as we break new ground in cancer research and bring our discoveries to the clinic.
Finally, finding out how well a new cancer treatment works is not an easy task. It is a process that takes many years, and it cannot be done without well-designed clinical trials. A clinical trial is an equal partnership between participants and physicians, where participants take an active role in helping us determine how well a new cancer treatment will work. In such an endeavor, the protection of participants' safety and privacy are first and foremost. Our Institutional Review Boards, the National Cancer Institute and the U.S Food and Drug Administration monitor the conduct of clinical trials and assure their ethical conduct. We are continually working to offer as many experimental treatments as possible to our patients, especially the ones for whom standard treatments may not be enough. Some new treatments are studied by large cooperative groups sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, others from pharmaceutical companies and others from our own scientists.
From prevention to discovery, the University of Mississippi Cancer Institute will tirelessly strive to achieve national and international leadership in the service of all Mississippians and of cancer patients worldwide.
Thank you for your interest in our Cancer Institute.
Lucio Miele, M.D., Ph.D., Director
