Massachusetts General Hospital's first joint cancer center opens in China

Local cancer patients will have better access to world-leading oncology treatments and new drugs after US-based Massachusetts General Hospital launched its first joint cancer center in China through cooperation with Shanghai Jiahui International Hospital.

At the center, patients in Shanghai and nearby regions can receive international cancer care from a multidisciplinary team of oncology specialists from both home and abroad, and will have chance to participate in clinical trials of new drugs.

Cancer treatment in the United States is among the best in the world, with the latest 2018 Annual American Report on Cancer revealing that the cancer mortality rate there has declined for 27 consecutive years, with an average annual decline of 1.5 percent, or 26 percent overall. 

Lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colorectal cancer have seen the sharpest decline. 

Over the past 30 years, the five-year survival rate for cancer in America has increased by 20 percent overall.

However, both the incidence and mortality rate of cancer in China keep rising, accounting for approximately a quarter of the global figure, according to data from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

But Daniel Haber, director of the Mass General Cancer Center, hopes that may start to change a bit.

“Cancer treatment in China is not as advanced as it should be," he said. "We want to introduce an international standard on cancer treatment to China through the multidisciplinary cancer platform established between Jiahui and Mass General."