Author: Tom Wilemon

Friedman named associate director for Community Science and Health Outcomes at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Jul. 2, 2020—Debra Friedman, MD, MS, E. Bronson Ingram Chair of Pediatric Oncology, is expanding her leadership role in improving cancer outcomes both within and beyond the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) catchment area. She has been named associate director of Community Science and Health Outcomes.

Study shows better option for treatment of inoperable anal cancer

Jun. 24, 2020—People with inoperable anal cancer treated with carboplatin-paclitaxel had fewer complications and lived longer than those who received another chemotherapy that has been more often administered.

Dayani now offers exercise consultations for cancer patients

Jun. 24, 2020—The Vanderbilt Dayani Center for Health and Wellness is now offering exercise planning consultations for people with cancer diagnoses.

Cortez named to VICC research leadership role

Jun. 18, 2020—David Cortez, PhD, has been named associate director for Basic Science Research at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC).

TERAVOLT registry tracks outcomes of treatments among people with thoracic cancers sickened by COVID-19

Jun. 12, 2020—New data from TERAVOLT, a global consortium that tracks outcomes of people with thoracic cancers affected by COVID-19, offers clues as to why they experienced a high death rate of 33% when the coronavirus swept across Europe.

Multinational consortium reports COVID-19 impact on cancer patients

May. 28, 2020—People with cancer sickened by COVID-19 have a crude death rate of 13%, according to the largest series of data released thus far from a multinational perspective. The data on more than 900 patients, published May 28 in The Lancet and simultaneously presented at ASCO20 Virtual, also revealed cancer-specific factors associated with increased mortality.

ASCO press program highlights COVID-19 outcomes in lung cancer patients

May. 26, 2020—People with thoracic cancers sickened by COVID-19 were especially vulnerable to deaths with a 35% mortality rate, according to early results from TERAVOLT, a global consortium that tracks outcomes among this vulnerable patient population.

State cancer plan has robust input and commitment from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

May. 21, 2020—More than a dozen representatives of Vanderbilt University Medical Center helped plan and made a commitment to help carry out the strategy for how Tennessee will prevent cancer and minimize its burden on state residents.

Study finds AI can categorize cancer risk of lung nodules

May. 7, 2020—by Tom Wilemon Computed tomography scans for people at risk for lung cancer lead to earlier diagnoses and improve survival rates, but they can also lead to overtreatment when suspicious nodules turn out to be benign. A study published in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine indicates that an artificial intelligence strategy can correctly assess and categorize these indeterminate pulmonary nodules (IPNs). When compared to the conventional risk models clinicians currently use, the algorithm developed by the team of researchers in a very large dataset (15,693 nodules) reclassified IPNs into low-risk or high-risk categories in over a third of cancers and benign nodules. “These results suggest the potential clinical utility of this deep learning algorithm to revise the probability of cancer among IPNs aiming to decrease invasive procedures and shorten time to diagnosis,” said Pierre Massion, MD, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Medicine at Vanderbilt University, the study’s lead author. Currently, clinicians refer to guidelines issued by the American College of Radiology and the American College of Chest Physicians. Adherence to these guidelines can be variable, and how patient cases are classified can be subjective. With the goal of providing clinicians with an unbiased assessment tool, the researchers developed an algorithm based on datasets from the National Lung Screening Trial, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Oxford University Hospital. Their study is the first to validate a risk stratification tool on multiple independent cohorts and to show reclassification performance that is significantly superior to existing risk models. With IPNs, clinicians are often faced with the dilemma of weighing whether to advise a patient to undergo an invasive surgical procedure, which may be unnecessary, against a watch-and-wait strategy, which may result in delaying needed cancer treatment. A definitive diagnosis of an IPN can take up to two years. Better assessment tools are needed by clinicians as screenings for patients at risk for lung cancer increase. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States and globally. The overall five-year survival rate is 21.7%, but it is much greater (92%) for those patients who receive an early diagnosis of stage IA1 non-small cell cancer. n

Initiative to explore COVID-19 outcomes in cancer patients

Apr. 30, 2020—A multi-institutional consortium led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) is collecting data on cancer patients with COVID-19 as part of a rapid effort to understand the unique effects the coronavirus has on this vulnerable population.

Polygenic scores identify those at high cancer risk

Apr. 23, 2020—A team of Vanderbilt researchers constructed polygenic risk scores (PRS) based on genomic variants associated with eight common cancers and concluded they could potentially be used for personalized risk assessments.