MaineHealth Maine Medical Center provides comprehensive, multidisciplinary care for acute and chronic gastrointestinal (GI), hepatic, and pancreaticobiliary diseases, including all cancers of the digestive tract.
Advanced gastrointestinal cancer care, close to home
All specialists involved in the evaluation and management of GI cancers work together to determine the diagnosis and course of treatment for each patient. Our multidisciplinary team includes oncologic surgeons, colorectal surgeons, gastroenterologists, radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, pathologists and other clinicians with specialists as needed. An experienced oncology-certified clinical patient navigator helps coordinate care on behalf of the patient. The team meets weekly to discuss each patient's case and share their expertise.
The team's commitment to outstanding patient care is supported by the latest advances in surgical, endoscopic and interventional radiology techniques. We stay on the leading edge of therapy by participating in clinical research, giving patients access to the latest treatment protocols through clinical trials that may not be available at other hospitals.
More about our services
We provide a full range of patient evaluation and clinical care resources for GI cancer, including:
- A state-of-the-art endoscopy unit staffed by sub-specialty trained gastroenterologists for the diagnosis and treatment of cancers of the digestive tract
- Advanced endoscopic procedures including ERCP and EUS
- Advanced pancreaticobiliary technology such as the SpyGlass scope and SMASH biopsy technique that can allow immediate biopsy result to determine if a tumor is cancerous
- Leading-edge interventional radiological procedures for the treatment of liver cancer including chemoembolization (the delivery of a targeted dose of chemotherapy directly to a tumor), and radiofrequency ablation (an image-guided technique that kills cancer cells by heating and destroying them)
- A non-surgical approach used for ablation of Barrett's esophagus, which is the use of electrical energy to remove the diseased layer of cells from the esophagus. MaineHealth Maine Medical Center was the first in Maine to provide this option that may eliminate the disease before it has the opportunity to progress to cancer.
