Mesothelioma.com: Dr. David Sugarbaker
Continues To Make Advancements In Treatment Of Mesothelioma Cancer
At
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr. Sugarbaker continues to focus on the
treatment of mesothelioma cancer, with a focus on one day finding a
cure for this aggressive disease
Syracuse,
NY 2/26/2009 08:55 p.m. GMT (FINDITT)
Dr. David Sugarbaker is a
leading thoracic oncologist and considered an expert in the diagnosis
and treatment of malignant pleural
mesothelioma.
He began his medical career
by attending Wheaton College, followed by medical
school at Cornell University. His
residencies were completed at
Peter Bent
Brigham
Hospital,
Brigham and Women’s Hospital,
Toronto General Hospital, and the Hospital
for Sick Children at the
University
of
Toronto.
He also completed fellowships at The Charles A. Dana Research
Institute, Harvard Medical School and
Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Sugarbaker received his surgical
board certificate in 1979 followed by another board certification in
thoracic surgery ten years later. In the academic world, he has worked
as an assistant and associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Mesothelioma is a rare and
fatal form of cancer that is caused by asbestos exposure. On average
only around 3,000 new cases are diagnosed annually in the United States.
There are difficulties in diagnosing the disease due to sharing
similar symptoms with other illnesses, as well as a long latency
period that can take twenty to fifty years for symptoms to appear.
Once the disease has been discovered, it is often too late for
effective treatment.
However, through his
research, Dr. Sugarbaker is trying to change those statistics. His
research mainly focuses on combining aspects of surgery, chemotherapy
and radiation into the
mesothelioma treatment
program. This new multi modality program, or the trimodality approach,
gives patients more options and a greater chance of success in their
fight against cancer. In one example, radiation and surgery may be
combined and the patient would undergo radiation therapy in order to
shrink a tumor to an operable size.
Dr. Sugarbaker has created the International
Pleural Mesothelioma Program, which works to find more successful
treatments and hopefully a cure to the disease. The program uses
clinical study and laboratory research to improve life expectancies
for patients. Specifically, his research focuses on five areas:
translational research in lung cancer and mesothelioma, multimodality
treatment and staging of malignant pleural mesothelioma, neoadjuvant
therapy for non-small-cell lung cancer, treatment of esophageal
cancer, and minimally invasive surgery.
Dr. Sugarbaker has published
a number of scholarly writings. Last year his piece, “Phase III Trial
of Trimodality Therapy With Cisplatin, Fluorouracil, Radiotherapy, and
Surgery Compared With Surgery Alone for Esophageal Cancer” was
published in the Journal
of Clinical Oncology. Two other pieces, “Lung
resection in patients with preoperative FEV1<35% predicted” and “Phase
I to II Study of Pleurectomy/Decortication and Intraoperative
Intracavitary Hyperthermic Cisplatin Lavage for Mesothelioma”
were also published in previous years.
Currently, Dr. Sugarbaker is the Chief of
Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital as well as the Chief
of Surgical Services at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. As he
continues his research and treatments, he wants those suffering from
mesothelioma to know progress is being made. He advises patients,
“most of all, upfront, to let them know that there is hope and that
there is treatment for mesothelioma. Because many patients come in and
don’t have the idea that there is treatment available and that their
disease is treatable, and that they can live longer than what they
thought they could.”
Sources:
Dana
Farber Cancer Institute Physician Profile
Brigham
and Women’s Hospital
Mesothelioma.com
