Overview – Gustave Roussy is a care, research and teaching institute, which takes care of patients with all types of cancer, any age of life. Its expertise in rare cancers and complex tumors is internationally recognized.
Gustave Roussy brings together medical, scientific and technological excellence in the service of patient treatment. Its internationally renowned experts are mobilized to carry out the three missions of the Institute: care, research and teaching. They have the ambition to cure cancer in the 21 st century.
High level research – The Institute integrates fundamental research, translational research and clinical research activities, sources of therapeutic innovations and diagnostic advances. Gustave Roussy focuses its research mainly on personalized medicine, immunotherapy and DNA repair, which makes it today the leading European center for personalized medicine and immunotherapy.
Cutting-edge medicine at the service of humans – Gustave Roussy teams are innovating in care to offer high quality care, less and less invasive and more and more personalized, with one objective: to optimize the care pathways. By combining innovation and humanity, where care is taken into account as well as the quality of physical, psychological and social life.
The Institute has high-tech infrastructure: robotic surgery, state-of-the-art outpatient surgery and interventional radiology platforms, completely revised radiotherapy platform, two chemotherapy preparation robots, genomics platform, etc.
Gustave Roussy is now ranked 1st in Europe for early clinical trials with a dedicated department, Ditep, in order to develop and facilitate patient access to innovative drugs within very short time frames.
Teaching – Through its education center, Gustave Roussy supports those involved in the fight against cancer and anticipates future revolutions in oncology.
Gustave Roussy trains professionals in the oncology professions of tomorrow, through the School of Cancer Sciences, attached to the University of Paris-Saclay. Gustave Roussy is also home to the Doctoral School of Oncology, the only monothematic doctoral school in oncology in France.
Treatments
Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment, which aims to destroy cancer cells with the help of radioactive rays. Depending on the location of the radiation source, a distinction is made between:
External radiotherapy – The rays are emitted by a particle accelerator (photons, electrons, protons). There are different types of devices, allowing different irradiation techniques to be used: intensity modulation radiation, tomotherapy, stereotaxis (Novalis), etc.
Brachytherapy – The source of the rays is implanted in the body, in contact with the tumor. This technique is only used to treat tumors located in certain areas of the body: breast, uterus, vagina, prostate, penis, tongue, soft palate, skin, bronchi, esophagus and anus.
Surgery at Gustave Roussy provides treatment for adult cancers, in digestive, dermatological, ENT, breast, gynecological, endocrinological, sarcoma surgery and reconstructive plastic surgery. Composed of 125 caregivers including around 20 surgeons, the department performs around 3,500 operations each year.
The surgical techniques performed combine minimally invasive surgery using endoscopy techniques, reconstructive plastic surgery and heavy surgery. Different innovative techniques are also regularly implemented, such as:
- radio-guided surgery
- looking for the sentinel node
- surgery for rare digestive cancers
- complex hepatectomies and intra-artificial hepatic chemotherapy (AIAH)
- treatment of primary and secondary peritoneal carcinomatosis
- surgery in irradiated areas (small intestine, pelvis)
- isolated limb perfusion in sarcomas of the extremities
- immediate breast reconstruction after mastectomy
- heavy gynecological surgery
- robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery
- rectal surgery and pseudo-continent perineal colostomy
- surgery for adrenal and neuroendocrine tumors
- esogastric surgery
- intraperitoneal chemo-hyperthermia (CHIP) and aerosolized intraperitoneal chemotherapy (PIPAC)
- sarcoma surgery
Chemotherapy refers to drug treatments aimed at destroying cancer cells by non-specific mechanisms. Some chemotherapies can be administered orally, others intravenously, some are not very toxic, others more. Likewise, the different tumors are not sensitive to the same chemotherapies. Chemotherapy therefore does not designate a drug, but a principle of treatment that includes a wide range of drugs.
Immunotherapy involves using the body’s immune defenses to attack and destroy cancer cells. Different approaches have been used for decades, before moving recently towards a very promising new strategy: targeting immune cells with drugs to break their tolerance towards cancer cells and thus stimulate their destruction by the body. . After having proven its effectiveness on metastatic melanoma, this new approach is starting to show good results in other types of cancer and is currently the subject of numerous clinical trials at Gustave Roussy.
Hormone Therapy The multiplication of certain types of malignant cells is dependent on hormones. These include breast and prostate cancers.
Hormone therapy will consist of blocking hormones in the body to prevent them from stimulating cancer.
In breast cancer, estrogen will be blocked, and in prostate cancer, androgens will be blocked.
Interventional radiology An alternative to surgery, is a so-called “minimally invasive” diagnostic and therapeutic method. It provides in-depth access to a tumor target by using the natural pathways (urinary system, digestive tract, etc.), the vascular network (arteries or veins) or by choosing a short and risk-free path through an organ ( liver for example).
These techniques are always guided by imaging (scanner, ultrasound, endoscopy) which allows to see in depth without having to “open” the tissues by conventional surgery. Interventional radiology makes it possible, for example, to administer high doses of drug directly into a tumor, to destroy tumor tissue by increasing local temperature, to place prostheses in narrowed or occluded ducts, etc.
CAR-T cells Treatment with CAR-T cells (Chimeric Antigenic Receptor – T) or CAR-T cells, is a rapidly developing cellular immunotherapy strategy, which aims to fight cancer by relying on the patient’s own immune system.
CAR-T cells are T lymphocytes that are genetically modified to recognize and then eliminate cancer cells. They are the basis of a whole new approach to treatment against cancer, consisting in removing immune cells from a patient (here, T lymphocytes), to genetically modify them and reinject them.
T lymphocytes are part of a category of white blood cells that play a very important role in the body’s defenses. These cells are responsible for the cellular immune response aimed at destroying pathogens, both bacteria and cancer cells. They have the ability to recognize and destroy tumor cells. Unfortunately, in some cases of cancer, the latter manage to inactivate them by different mechanisms.
- Languages : French, English