By Duke Medicine News and Communications

For the 18th year in a row, Duke University Hospital has been named as one of the top 10 U.S. hospitals in the annual U.S. News & World Report's best hospital edition.

Duke came in at seventh place, the same ranking it received in 2006. Duke University Hospital ranked highly in 15 of the specialties measured, with top-10 rankings in 10 of them. Duke is the only hospital in North Carolina and the Southeast ranked in the top 10.

The rankings for individual specialties follow:

Gynecology #4
Geriatrics #5
Orthopaedics #6
Digestive/Gastroenterology #7
Ophthalmology #7
Heart/Heart Surgery #8
Cancer #9
Kidney Disease #9
Urology #9
Respiratory Disease/ Pulmonary #10
Psychiatry #13
Rheumatology #13
Ear, Nose, Throat/Otolaryngology #20
Neurology and Neurosurgery #23
Endocrinology #26

The U.S. News & World Report's rankings appeared in the July 25, 2007, issue of the magazine, which arrived at the newsstands July 16, 2007.

All of the 18 medical centers named as the best this year had to demonstrate a breadth of excellence by achieving a high ranking in no fewer than seven of the 16 specialties, according to the magazine.

The top 10 hospitals in the U.S. News & World Report's rankings were, respectively: Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, UCLA Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Duke, University of California-San Francisco, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

For more information about the U.S. News & World Report rankings, visit www.usnews.com/besthospitals.