Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center Archives

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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.

Study explores melanoma drug’s effectiveness

Apr. 23, 2020—A study by Vanderbilt research-ers supports the clinical development of a new second-line treatment for metastatic melanoma.

Study tracks genomics of lung tumor behavior

Apr. 9, 2020—A study by Vanderbilt researchers has identified genomic alterations in early stage adenocarcinomas of the lung that may indicate whether the lesions develop into aggressive tumors.

Shinohara named chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology

Apr. 3, 2020—After serving as the department’s interim leader, Eric Shinohara, MD, MSCI, vice chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been named as the department’s chair.

Triple-negative breast cancer drug therapy shows promise

Mar. 12, 2020—Researchers from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) discovered a role for MYCN in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a particularly aggressive form of the disease, and identified a potential intervention for further clinical investigation.

VICC’s Knoop elected to Oncology Nursing Society board of directors

Mar. 12, 2020—Teresa Knoop, MSN, RN, assistant director of Clinical Operations for the Clinical Trials Office at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), has been elected to the board of directors of the Oncology Nursing Society.

Early-career investigators

Mar. 12, 2020—Henry Henderson, PhD, was one of 16 researchers selected to participate in the American Association for Cancer Research’s Early-Career Investigator Hill Day on Feb. 27 in Washington, D.C. While there, he met with U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and discussed funding for the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute with a member of the senator’s health policy staff.