Introduction

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, which began operations in 1944, was designated one of the first three comprehensive cancer centers in 1971 under the National Cancer Act and has kept that designation ever since. The first leader of the institution, Dr. Randolph Lee Clark, was a visionary who, from the onset of planning the institution, understood the importance of having an integral record of the many cancer patients treated at the institution and of their survival outcomes. He therefore included, as part of the institution's operational plan, a tumor registry that since 1944 has continuously captured the story of the treatment and outcome of every patient who has walked through the doors of the institution. This uninterrupted data repository, unique in its consistency throughout the institution's history, permits us to retrospectively analyze the changes in survival outcome made within the setting of our cancer-specific care-delivery system over the past 60 years. This monograph is the result of a retrospective review of our Tumor Registry data across six decades and presents a snapshot of the parallel history of cancer care at the institution.