Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of roughly 1% of U.S. hospitals holding a National Cancer Institute comprehensive cancer center designation, has spent more than 50 years addressing cancer care in the Bronx, where 85% of the population relies on Medicaid or Medicare and disease has historically been caught at later stages. A low-dose lung cancer screening program and its “Follow-Up ASsessmenT of Lung Nodules” clinic, which has fielded more than 2,000 referrals since 2022, have helped shift more Bronx patients to stage 1 diagnoses, where 5-year survival runs 65% compared with 8% for stage IV. The cancer center’s clinical trial program enrolled more than 1,900 patients across over 500 active studies, with 80% of participants drawn from groups traditionally under- or unrepresented in research, and the center logged $60 million in research funding, 29 new patent filings and 16 issued U.S. patents since January 2025. Its ICE3 Trial helped drive the FDA’s 2025 expansion of cryoablation eligibility for breast cancer, reporting a 5-year local recurrence rate of just 4.3%, while a new metronomic dosing protocol for myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia, published in the journal Blood, offers a less-toxic alternative to standard treatment. A newly launched breast cancer screening outreach strategy combining digital tools, patient navigation and AI brought in more than 5,000 women overdue for screening in just nine months. The cancer center also ranks in the top 1% of U.S. hospitals for complex cancer care according to U.S. News & World Report, and its lung cancer team received the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s 2025 “Cancer Care Team Award,” the only North American program so honored that year.
