Annual Report 2018
Preface
The National Cancer Center Hospital East (NCCHE) was designated as a "Core genome medicine center" by the MHLW Japan in FY2017 following the "Advanced Treatment Hospital" and "Clinical Trial Center" in 2016 and 2015, respectively. These three approvals confirm that the NCCHE has top level qualities/functions either in clinical or research activities in Japan
In 2017, the NCCHE launched "The Center for New Surgical and Endoscopic Development for Exploratory Technology (NEXT)", which helped an increased number of patients receive surgery and endoscopy treatment. As seen in recent years, the number of patients referred to our hospital has been increasing year by year, with the latest records in the NCCHE showing: 9,257 new referrals (excluding second opinion cases), 402.0 for the average numbers of inpatients/day with a 102.4% bed occupation rate, and an average of 1,142 outpatients, and a total of 3,776 surgeries and 179.0 iv treatments/day in FY 2018. The "Ladies Center" consisting of a multi-disease oncologist/co-medical staff team was launched in September 2019 for specific female cancer patient care. More than 4,000 consultations including appearance, fertility, hereditary cancer (HBOC), etc., were undertaken by the team during the first year. With the increase of new referrals, the NCCHE plans to launch a hospital-cooperative hotel in 2022.
In regard to research activities, the NCCHE newly organized the "Medical Device development Support Office" and "Research Concierge Office" in FY 2018 to promote innovative medical device developmental and precision medicine. The clinical/TR support office has been intensively organized in collaboration with "The Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center (EPOC)" on the Kashiwa campus, which enables the undertaking of various clinical/translational research projects including many investigatorinitiated registration trials considered to be top level in Japan. With these efforts, the number of publications is increasing year by year in association with many publications in top journals. The NCCHE also started the nationwide genome screening consortium (SCRUM-Japan) in collaboration with 260 hospitals and 17 pharmaceutical companies from 2015. With the additional implementation of a cutting-edge liquid biopsy NGS panel, more than 10,000 patients have already been enrolled for this program aiming to genotypematch new agent developmental studies. This consortium has become one of the largest groups in the world yielding new regulatory approval of five agents and several investigators have started to lead international collaborations for precision medicine. SCRUM-Asia was launched in 2018 followed by new participants from Taiwan and international standardization of a new disease entity was attempted in collaboration with Western countries. For immuno-oncology research programs, various academia-industry collaborative studies are also underway with EPOC investigators. Various combination studies with immune checkpoint inhibitors were conducted in which some combinations achieved highly promising efficacy followed by global randomized studies led by several investigators in the NCCHE. NCCHE/EPOC are planning to have more intensive academia-industry collaborations in the new research building adjacent to the hospital space which will be opened in 2021. These activities are anticipated to provide new agent/device developments, which may achieve our two missions "To provide the best cancer medicine in the world" and "To develop a world-class innovative cancer medicine".
Atsushi Ohtsu, M.D., Ph.D.
Director
National Cancer Center Hospital East