The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

An NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Houston.

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About this hospital

MD Anderson in Houston treats one disease. Cancer is the only thing this hospital does, and that is unusual in the United States. Cancer is not a single illness. It is hundreds of different diseases, and they behave in different ways. A doctor at a general hospital may see one case of a rare tumor in an entire career. This hospital was built to do nothing but cancer, so its staff sees cancer all day. Care is split into 14 centers, one for each group of cancers. There is a Leukemia Center, a Breast Center, a Thoracic Center for lung and chest cancers, and eleven more. The surgeons, cancer doctors, and radiation doctors for your cancer type all work in one center. You are not sent around a large hospital to assemble your own team.

Awards and recognition

NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center

The National Cancer Institute is the federal government's cancer agency. It reviews cancer centers and funds the ones that meet its standards. Comprehensive is the harder tier, and about 58 centers in the country hold it. MD Anderson was one of the first three named Comprehensive after the National Cancer Act of 1971. Outside scientists make the decision, and the review is repeated every few years.

Founding Member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network writes the cancer treatment guidelines that most American oncologists follow. Insurers often check those same guidelines before approving a treatment. MD Anderson was one of the institutions that formed the network in 1995. Doctors from member institutions help write and update the guidelines.

Ranked No. 1 for Cancer by U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report publishes an annual Best Hospitals list. Its 2026-2027 rankings placed MD Anderson first in the nation for cancer. The hospital has been ranked in the top two for cancer every year since that survey began in 1990.

First Proton Therapy Center Inside a Comprehensive Cancer Center

The Proton Therapy Center opened in 2006 and treated its first patient in May of that year. MD Anderson says it was the first proton facility built inside a comprehensive cancer center. Protons stop at the tumor instead of passing through the body, so less healthy tissue is hit. The center also helped develop pencil beam scanning, which delivers the beam across a tumor point by point.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2018

James P. Allison shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was recognized for showing that the immune system carries a brake, and that releasing it lets the body attack cancer. That discovery led to the checkpoint drugs now used against melanoma, lung cancer, and other tumors. He works at MD Anderson, and the hospital's immunotherapy institute carries his name.

Magnet Recognition for Nursing

The American Nurses Credentialing Center grants Magnet recognition to hospitals that meet its standards for nursing care. MD Anderson has earned it five times in a row. Nursing quality is hard for a patient to check from the outside, so an independent review of it is useful.

Treatment & Specialties

Care here is organized around the cancer, not around the specialty. MD Anderson runs 14 cancer centers, and each one covers a group of related cancers. There is a Breast Center and a Leukemia Center. There is a Thoracic Center for lung and chest cancers, and a Head and Neck Center. Others cover the brain and spine, the colon and rectum, and the digestive organs. There are centers for the kidneys and bladder, for the female reproductive organs, and for the hormone glands. Melanoma and other skin cancers have their own center, and so does sarcoma. Sarcoma is cancer that starts in bone or soft tissue. Children are treated in a separate Children's Cancer Hospital. This structure exists for a practical reason. Most cancer treatment is a combination, and surgery, radiation, and drugs have to be sequenced together. When those doctors sit in the same center, the plan gets made once, by people who see your cancer type every week.

Research & Innovation

The National Cancer Institute runs a program that reviews cancer centers and funds them. Around 74 centers are in the program, and about 58 of them carry the Comprehensive label. That is the harder standard, and it is worth knowing what it actually asks for. A Comprehensive center must be strong in laboratory science, in studies run on patients, and in prevention and population research. It also has to show that those three connect. Discoveries in the lab are meant to reach the clinic, and questions from the clinic are meant to go back to the lab. On top of that, the center must teach and must serve the population around it. Outside scientists judge all of it. The grant behind the designation runs about five years, and then the center is reviewed again. MD Anderson has held the designation since 1971, when it was one of the first three centers named Comprehensive after Congress passed the National Cancer Act.