MSK-IMPACT to come to JHMC: CMO

Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, via its collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, plans to introduce a genetic cancer-screening program in approximately a month.

This comes on the heels of the hospital being surprised with a $188 million grant from Gov. Hochul toward its own fully fledged cancer center earlier this year.

MSK-IMPACT, which stands for Integrated Mutation Profiling of Actionable Cancer Targets, is used to identify genetic abnormalities in cancer patients, and then a focused therapy based on the abnormality is used, said JHMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sabiha Raoof.

“It’s available to all MSK patients,” Raoof told the Chronicle. “We have spent a lot of months planning on how to bring it here. We are almost about to launch it now at [the MediSys Health Network Cancer Center] for our patients. It will be a big win for our patients, because then we will be able to use targeted therapy for our patients.”

The existing cancer center, located at 8900 Van Wyck Expy., has 24 multipurpose private rooms where providers meet patients instead of having them travel around the hospital for care. The existing center has four medical oncologists and hired a fifth to start in July. It also has a dedicated nutritionist. The goal is to add more personnel at the new center in the future.

Treatments at the existing center include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy and antibody drug conjugates. There are also social services (transportation, social and housing support and more).

“We also provide massage therapy and yoga therapy,” said the CMO. “It’s on a smaller scale at this cancer center. All those services we do plan to put in the bigger center, at which time we will have to expand the number of people.”

Raoof said that JHMC does not have clinical trials geared toward cancer similar to MSK just yet, but with the introduction of MSK-IMPACT, the hospital can build up its research team ahead of opening the larger comprehensive cancer center, which will be at its renovated D-Building, located at 90-28 Van Wyck Expy. in Richmond Hill, and is set to open within four to five years, and then do those trials.

“Creating that infrastructure will help us handle clinical trials here,” said Raoof. “IMPACT testing will help us identify who is eligible for those trials.”

Raoof said the hospital would like to focus on breast and lung cancer clinical trials in the future.

“We will start off with those common cancers,” said Raoof. “Then we will add more in the future.”

The larger cancer center, which will be in the 90,000-square-foot building, would be able to accommodate the needs of the approximately 1.2 million people within JHMC’s service area, hospital CEO Bruce Flanz said last year at a ribbon cutting for the interim center. At the ceremony, U.S. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-Jamaica) said that Queens has about 11,500 cancer patients, approximately 3,200 of whom have a fatal diagnosis.

“Currently, we are in the process of working with an architect,” said Raoof. “We are trying to figure out what needs to go in that building and getting advice from MSK.”

Three essential parts for any cancer center are medical oncology, radiation oncology and surgical oncology, said the CMO.

The new center will have an onsite radiation and infusion therapy campus, said Raoof.

“We got a grant from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards for a linear accelerator last year, but building the vaults for a linear accelerator is a $10 million project,” said Raoof. “That is part of this grant.”

Last year, Richards allocated $3 million toward a linear accelerator, which is used to deliver pinpoint radiation treatments to cancerous tumors.

“This would be the first phase of our cancer center,” said Raoof. “By fall, we should be building our radiation oncology suite where that linear accelerator will be housed.”

At the existing center, JHMC is outsourcing radiation oncology to an outside group it has a contract with.

“The linear accelerator and what is called a CT simulator, which helps us plan the radiation therapy for the patient, are going to be housed in the radiation suite we are planning to build,” Raoof said. “In that suite, we are going to leave a space to add a second linear accelerator when the volume picks up."

The hospital is also planning on having an additional CT scanner there.

Raoof, a breast cancer survivor, said the new comprehensive center is a dream come true: “I’m very excited to see this finish and have a cancer center available for our patients right here.”

CORRECTION

This article originally misstated the employment length of the doctors at the cancer center. Text also has been edited to reflect that there will be an additional CT scanner at the hospital. We regret the error.