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Norris Cotton Cancer Center Named One of Best in Nation

Only Facility in Northern New England to Make Prestigious U.S. News List

LEBANON, NH - Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center has been ranked as one of the top cancer care facilities in the U.S. In its annual "America's Best Hospitals" issue, to be released on newsstands July 15, U.S. News and World Report lists the Cancer Center as one of the 50 best treatment and research centers in the country.

The U.S. News listing of best health care facilities is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative and prestigious in the country. Unlike other listings that look only at facilities in metropolitan regions (such as the AARP and Leapfrog Group rankings), the U.S. News study surveys more than 6,000 hospitals in all regions of the country. Hospitals are compared according to reputation, mortality, number of procedures performed, level of technology available, and a number of other criteria.

Norris Cotton Cancer Center was the only cancer facility in northern New England to qualify among the U.S. News top 50,and was ranked 39th, in such company as Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Johns Hopkins, and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

"This is obviously a great honor and exciting news for all of us in the Dartmouth community," said Dr. Mark Israel, Cancer Center Director. "This report confirms the important role the Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center plays in relieving the burden of cancer - for our region, and throughout the country."

Israel said he was particularly pleased by how well the Cancer Center, the only rural cancer center on the U.S. News list, compared with larger, urban, and more well-known cancer centers. "Our Cancer Center is a dynamic environment that draws on the entire Dartmouth community to deliver an extraordinary and powerful focus on cancer. At Dartmouth, collaborations in cancer bridge exciting, new research at Dartmouth College and its graduate Schools of Medicine and Engineering, to state-of-the-art clinical care at its academic medical center. Dartmouth is uniquely poised to make important contributions to solving the problem of cancer."

In addition to its inclusion on the U.S. News list, Norris Cotton Cancer Center has the distinction of being one of a select group of institutions nationwide designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The full U.S. News "Special Report on America's Best Hospitals," including a description of the survey and methodology, can be accessed online at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/home.htm.

Deborah Kimbell 603-653-1913

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