By Duke Medicine News and Communications

For the 19th 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 eighth place. Duke University Hospital ranked highly in 15 of the specialties measured, with top-10 rankings in seven of them. Duke is the only hospital in North Carolina and the Southeast ranked in the top 10.

The rankings for individual specialties follow:

Rankings for individual specialties follow:

• Cancer #11
• Ear, Nose, Throat/Otolaryngology #20
• Endocrinology #21
• Gastroenterology #15
• Geriatrics #5
• Gynecology #4
• Heart/Heart Surgery #8
• Kidney Disease #12
• Neurology and Neurosurgery #20
• Ophthalmology #8
• Orthopaedics #7
• Psychiatry #12
• Respiratory Disease/ Pulmonary #9
• Rheumatology #14
• Urology #6

The U.S.News & World Report's rankings will appear in the July 28, 2008, issue of the magazine, which will arrive at the newsstands on July 21, 2008.

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 six 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, New York-Presbyterian University Hospital, University of California-San Francisco, Duke University Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.