Westwood ? The Kansas University Cancer Center and the Kansas City Cancer Center announced on Tuesday their intent to combine operations.

The Kansas City Cancer Center is a physician oncology practice with 10 locations throughout the Kansas City region.

Officials at both organizations did not comment beyond a written statement, saying the deal had not yet been finalized. A final deal could be in place by this summer.

The KU Hospital Authority Board approved the statement Tuesday, but took no other action on the issue.

The statement offered some details about the partnership:

• Kansas City Cancer Center’s non-physician staff will join, and its facilities will become a part of, KU Hospital.

• Kansas City Cancer Center physicians will become members of the Kansas University Physicians, the organization that employs the doctors at KU Hospital. They will also become faculty members at KU Medical Center in the departments of internal medicine, radiation oncology and pathology and laboratory medicine.

• Kansas City Cancer Center is affiliated with U.S. Oncology, an integrated oncology company with a network of 1,100 physicians and 10,000 cancer professionals. U.S. Oncology will remain part of the operation and will provide some proprietary products and will collaborate on research.

Combined, the two cancer centers will have 50 hematologists, oncologists and radiation oncologists at 12 locations.

For the KU Cancer Center, the partnership would mean an expanded opportunity for research, additional Phase I clinical trials and support for National Cancer Institute designation.

The two cancer centers have collaborated in the past. In 2007, they combined their blood and marrow transplant program.

A KU Hospital spokesman declined to discuss financial aspects of the deal, saying such details were proprietary information.