News: Director’s Letter

While the risks for many types of cancer increase with age, cancer is not restricted to those of older age. Stephen Huff, the subject of our cover story in this issue of Momentum, was 29 years old when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He shares his shock at hearing the news, his gratitude about […]

Fortitude is threaded through the stories in this Momentum. Fortitude is what gives people battling cancer the strength to scale their obstacles. It is what cancer survivors use to lift up new patients. And it is what our researchers grip as they pursue research projects that can span years. Thomas Brewer has fortitude. Having beat […]

A Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) researcher is leading the nation’s largest-ever study of breast cancer genetics in African-American women—a $12 million initiative funded by the National Cancer Institute to determine the factors that make breast cancer deadlier for black women.  Our cover story about the Breast Cancer Genetic Study in African-Ancestry Populations, for which Dr. […]

Preventing cancer, pioneering new cancer treatments and safeguarding patients from harm are missions that require community commitment. Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) is taking actions on all those fronts, but we can’t do it alone. The articles in this issue of Momentum highlight the importance of primary care providers, philanthropic supporters, empowered patients and emergency department […]

Stories in this issue of Momentum are stitched together with a common thread—the crucial role that surgeons play in cancer treatment and recovery. It’s a role that can be overlooked. While the media spotlight focuses on emerging cancer treatments—immunotherapies that spur people’s immune systems to attack tumors, and targeted therapies that keep cancer cells from […]

A new era in cancer research and treatment is dawning. Decades of hard work, scientific investment and diligent commitment led to the development of the first targeted therapies and immunotherapies 20 years ago, but only a few of these therapies had become widely available—until recently. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved several immunotherapies in […]

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center’s robust quest of discovery and extensive delivery of new treatment options for patients will continue to receive significant support from the National Cancer Institute. The NCI has renewed Vanderbilt-Ingram’s Cancer Center Support Grant and our designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center with an overall “exceptional” score and almost $30 million of funding […]

The idea of using immune cells to treat cancer isn’t new; however, recently basic scientists and clinical investigators have garnered enough mechanistic insight and clinical data to realize the promise of cancer immunotherapy. New immunotherapy drugs were approved late last year, and in trials we saw that more patients were responding to the drugs and […]

When I was a postdoctoral fellow in the early 1990s, two large epidemiologic studies showed that a select group of human papilloma virus (HPV) types is responsible for premalignant lesions found in Pap smear screening and for the development of most cervical cancers. Later studies showed that nearly all cervical cancers are caused by HPV. […]

We know that half of all cancer cases are preventable or detectable early, and imaging plays a big role in early detection of tumors. For example, our new lung cancer screening program, just launched in January, provides low-dose CT scans for patients at high risk for lung cancer, one of the deadliest cancers. Ninety percent […]