When complex cancer care travels
Across the US, large and mostly rural regions send their hardest cancer cases to one academic cancer center, often far from home.
Most cancer care still happens close to home: NCI notes that most cancer patients receive their care in the community. It is the complex case that travels. NCI lists 74 designated cancer centers, and none of them is based in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada or Wyoming.
Sources: NCI, community oncology research program; NCI, designated cancer centers (June 2026).
Region by region
One academic center, a region’s hardest cases
- Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho
- Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle is the only NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center in the five-state WWAMI region.Fred Hutch News, 2021
- Utah, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming
- Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City says it serves the largest land area of any NCI-designated cancer center, 524,000 square miles, and that more than 30% of its patients travel over 150 miles for care.University of Utah Health, 2026
- New Mexico
- The University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center in Albuquerque, the state's only NCI-designated cancer center, cares for more than half of New Mexico's cancer patients.UNM Health Sciences, 2026
- New Hampshire and Vermont
- Dartmouth Cancer Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, is the only NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center in the two states, where 51% of its region's people live in rural areas.Dartmouth Cancer Center
- Kansas and western Missouri
- The University of Kansas Cancer Center serves 4.6 million people in 123 counties, 96 of them rural or frontier, across more than 92,000 square miles.The University of Kansas Cancer Center, 2025
- Kentucky
- UK Markey Cancer Center in Lexington, Kentucky's only NCI-designated cancer center, counts the whole state as its region, where more than 70% of the 120 counties are rural.UK HealthCare
- Iowa
- Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center in Iowa City counts the entire state as its region, and 38% of Iowans live in rural counties.University of Iowa Health Care
- Nebraska
- The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha is Nebraska's only NCI-designated cancer center.National Cancer Institute, 2026
What the trip costs
For the patient, specialty care can be a flight away
55%
of out-of-state patients seen for urologic cancer at Fred Hutch had flown to get there
60%
needed a hotel
1 in 3
spent more than $800 on travel for that one visit
Researchers at Fred Hutch measured what the trip costs the patients who make it: most of the out-of-state patients they surveyed had flown in, and a third had spent more than $800 to make one visit.
Where Everyboard fits
Every specialty’s view, before anyone travels
Everyboard puts every specialty’s written reasoning in front of the treating physician first, close to home. Cases that can be settled there are. Cases that need an academic center arrive with each discipline’s position and the open questions already documented.
We are starting where we live: Everyboard is built in Leavenworth, Washington, and we are opening access across the Pacific Northwest first.
Request access for your practice or cancer program
We are opening access across the Pacific Northwest first. We read every request and will get back to you within two business days.
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