Presentation of the Centre
The Integrated Center for Oncology (ICO) - born in 2011 from the merge of the René Gauducheau Center in Nantes and Paul Papin Center in Angers - welcomes almost 45 000 patients per year thaks to 1300 employees, 200 physicians, 100 residents and 500 students.
Specialised in oncology, ICO professionals support patients at every stage of their care pathway, through a personalised, innovating and multidisciplinary approach. Form quick diagnosis to surgery, chemotherapy and / or radiotherapy, ICO also offers patient support services, highly developed in our institution.
Main research activities
At ICO research is integrated into daily patient management.
Systemic medicine: Prevention (identifying predispositions to breast cancer in the population) - Personalization (giving the right patient the right treatment at the right time) and Safety (minimizing the toxicity of treatments)
Big data – machine learning: Modelling (integrating heterogeneous patient data to evaluate the cancer’s complexity), Innovation (developing new software tools to improve personalized cancer treatment), and Ethics (ethically managing databases in line with regulatory constraints).
Clinical research: Streamlined resources (using routine clinical data in clinical trials - Profitability (facilitating decision-making and improving the performances of phase III clinical trials) and Innovation (bringing the pharmaceutical industry virtual control arms).
Core Facilities
- Medical oncology – almost 40 000 chemotherapy sessions/year
- Radiotherapy – around 100 000 sessions / year, 11 accelerators and 1 intraoperative accelerator
- Medical imaging – 46 000 exams/year
- Nuclear medicine – more than 18 000 procedures/year
- Internal pharmacy
- Anatomical pathology laboratory
- Support services
- Surgery and Anaesthesia – 8 operating rooms and a monitoring unit, 5 600 surgery stays par year including 66% ambulatory stays
Technology platforms for healthcare and research
- Genomics
- Proteomics
- Transcriptomics
- Lipidomics
- Biological resource centre – Tumour Bank
Education
At ICO teaching and continuous professional training are a significant part of its mission. The majority of the staff of the cancerology section of the National University Advisory Board (Fr. Conseil National des Universités , CNU) of the Pays de la Loire Region are attached to ICO.
Whilst all of the professional staff at the ICO contribute to the teaching mission, University-Hospital staff and University staff actively drive the training policy in the various disciplines present at the ICO.