Last Wednesday marked the opening of Stanford Hospital & Clinics’ Brain Tumor Center, an initiative aimed at bringing specialized and collaborative care to address one of the hardest conditions to treat, according to Gordon Li, one of two specialists hired to supplement the center’s staff, and an acting professor in neurosurgery.

“The brain is a lot more mysterious than the heart or lungs, and it’s who we are, what defines us,” said Lawrence Recht, professor of neurology and one of the center’s physicians, in a press release. “That raises the impact of a brain-tumor diagnosis.”

“Tumors that originate in the brain are still rare compared to many other health conditions,” he continued. “So it makes a difference if you are treated at a place where they know what they’re doing. We have virtually every possible discipline and specialty represented here, with a large body of accumulated experience. That can make a big difference in results for patients.”

In accordance with these collaborative goals, the center will not be housed in its own building but rather will represent a conceptual conglomeration of several departments, including neuropathology, imaging, neurosurgery, neurology and neuro-oncology. The program will also include social workers and specialized nurses.

In the press release, center director and professor of neurosurgery Griffith Harsh said the project’s goal “is to give patients the highest quality of care, delivered with a matching level of efficiency.”

Patients will also have access to clinical trials and research at Stanford. This treatment-research partnership has been instrumental in producing the innovative care–for example, minimally invasive tumor removal and imaging during surgery–which the press release advertises as “cutting edge.”

–Ellora Israni