The Hospital Clínic gains weight by being recognized as a comprehensive cancer center

Barcelona reinforces its medical leadership in oncology. Hospital Clínic has received preliminary designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC), a model of excellence for a cancer approach that unifies care, research, and training. To increase survival, the European Commission (EC) has set the goal of moving towards this new multidisciplinary organizational structure, with which it aims to treat 90% of patients by 2030.

The Clínic thus becomes the second center in Barcelona to be designated with this category and one of the first in Spain, after Hospital Vall d'Hebron obtained accreditation from the Organization of European Cancer Institutes (OECI) in mid-2023. "It is very good for the country to have comprehensive cancer centers," says Dr. Aleix Prat, who will direct the Clínic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Eixample hospital expects to receive final authorization by the end of the year.

For the patient, the new organization will translate into more personalized and constant care throughout the disease process. The Clínic will unite all phases under one umbrella, from prevention and diagnosis, through treatment, to follow-up, with the aim of more efficiently coordinating all professionals involved. In addition, it will allow faster access to new tests and therapies developed by its researchers, which will improve patient care, but also consolidate the center as a benchmark for attracting and retaining national and international talent.

The focus has traditionally been on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, but there is also a desire to provide better post-treatment care, when surgery and chemo are already done, but the patient needs to recover psychologically and often feels helpless, for which more work will be needed with primary care to provide comprehensive coverage. "Increasing survival is important, but also curing better," summarizes Prat, an expert in breast cancer, where progress must be made towards more precise surgery with fewer side effects.

With the new scheme, clinical assistants will gain prominence, a coordination figure who will mostly be nurses and who will accompany and guide patients throughout a tough process that takes them from one doctor to another, from one test to another, and often leaves them lost at a very delicate and distressing time. The circuit from the first suspicion to subsequent controls will be monitored at all times and it will also be known what phase the patient is in, as well as the steps that will follow.

Comprehensive cancer centers also need to provide a better response to the territory. The Clínic focuses on the C-17 highway axis, with a reference population of 1.2 million people, for which it works with the hospitals of Granollers (where it already offers radiology), Mollet del Vallès, Sant Celoni, Vic and Campdevànol, a relationship that must grow in the coming years to be able to bring the latest medical advances to all citizens.

Awaiting the new Clínic

For decades, the Clínic has been working to unite the work of its oncology, surgery, and radiology teams with the research carried out by the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) and the training provided by the University of Barcelona (UB), so the new Comprehensive Cancer Center is one more step, a consolidation of this way of operating. For now, limited to the current facilities, outdated and boxed in the Eixample's framework, with an eye on the future Clínic, which will be located in the upper part of Diagonal and will allow progress towards modern medical campus models.

The center will be led by Dr. Aleix Prat, director of the Clínic's Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute, the embryo for this new operating model that was launched at the end of 2023. Trained at Vall d'Hebron with Dr. Josep Baselga, he had previously led the Clínic's Medical Oncology Service (2014-2022). Prat will work with Dr. Meritxell Mollà, who will be in charge of coordinating care activities, Dr. Álvaro Urbano-Ispizua, who will focus on training, and Dr. Elías Campo, who will be responsible for the research part.

Cancer represents between 20% and 30% of the Clínic's activity, a reference in hematological cancers (leukemia, lymphomas and myelomas), breast cancer and liver cancer, as well as in CAR-T cell therapies, with examples such as ARI-0001 for acute leukemia and ARI-0002 for multiple myeloma, named after Ari Benedé, a 13-year-old girl with leukemia who did everything possible to bring a treatment that was previously only done in the United States.

With a budget of 170.5 million euros (133.2 million for care and 37.3 million for research), the Clínic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Center will encompass more than a thousand professionals. The Cancer Institute keeps half. The center currently has 6,500 new patients annually, more than 140 hospitalization beds, as well as 25 research groups, responsible for more than 450 scientific publications and almost 360 active clinical trials, and five UB chairs dedicated to cancer.