Division of Oncology

About the Division

The Division provides medical oncology clinical services at Los Angeles General Medical Center, USC Norris Cancer Hospital (Norris) and Keck Hospital of USC (KH). At Los Angeles General Medical Center, the Division is responsible for two busy inpatient consultative services for seriously ill patients with solid tumors and those receiving inpatient-based chemotherapy. Ambulatory patients are seen in five half-day clinics. Outpatient-based chemotherapy and blood product administration occur daily in the Los Angeles General Medical Center Infusion Center.

The Division operates a busy inpatient service at Norris, and provides consultative services at KH. Ambulatory patients at Norris are seen in multiple daily outpatient clinics, and chemotherapy is administered in the Day Hospital.

The Division of Oncology is experiencing increases in new outpatient visits, admissions and clinical efficiency at Norris and Los Angeles General Medical Center. At the same time, a substantial number of patients are entered into peer-reviewed clinical trials with accompanying translational research protocols, thus bringing innovative treatment strategies and therapeutic agents to patients.

Our research programs received substantial funding from the NIH and other peer-reviewed grant support, as well as industry-funded studies, and our faculty and fellows published extensively in peer-reviewed literature. In addition, members of the Division have participated in intramural undergraduate and postgraduate teaching activities, as well as lecturing in numerous international forums in Europe and Asia.

The USC Westside Cancer Center in Beverly Hills offers the latest in treatments from a range of specialties, all focused on the oncologic care of patients with prostate cancer. The Center strives to bring new therapies to patients and is advancing the clinical care of prostate cancer through novel clinical trials. The Center is closely tied with the Health Sciences Campus-based USC Center for Applied Molecular Medicine and the USC National Cancer Institute Physical Sciences-Oncology Center. Both centers focus on using current molecular technologies, bringing together physicists, mathematicians, engineers, biologists and physicians to increase the understanding and control of cancer. “Virtual Cancer Models” based on measurements from individual cancer patients will be created and used to simulate cancer growth and predict drug responses for each patient.

The Keck Medical Center of USC- Pasadena office offers treatments in all aspects of both hematologic and oncologic care for residents of the San Gabriel Valley. Patients are offered participation in the many clinical trials being conducted by the Division.

Keck Medicine of USC has acquired the prestigious Orange Coast Oncology Hematology (OCOH) group to create Keck Medicine of USC Oncology/Hematology in Orange County. This is an important step for USC and part of a larger strategy to grow Keck Medicine of USC’s oncology services throughout Southern California. This acquisition allows us to offer our cancer research options to patients in Orange County. We are helping to expand these opportunities in collaboration with Hoag Hospital.

Training & Education

The Division of Oncology increased its emphasis on translational research based on fundamental concepts of molecular biology. This approach has been predicated on the emerging knowledge of the molecular correlates of anticancer drug resistance, increased understanding of the genes associated with familial and sporadic patterns of malignancy (colorectal and breast cancer, in particular), the immunological basis of tumor response and resistance, and a more precise assessment of the pharmacology of novel anticancer compounds.

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