I was being nothing but vain and having a small mole removed from my face. Since the removal was for cosmetic reasons, my dermatologist didn’t measure the size or take pictures, but she did order a biopsy. Within three days I received the call that no one ever wants to get. The mole on my […]
Cancer is a peripatetic world traveler that doesn’t recognize geographic barriers or halt at national borders. It is among the leading causes of death worldwide. There were 14 million new cancer cases in 2012 and 8.2 million deaths, and the number of new cancer cases is expected to surge to 22 million within the […]
Luke Simons and James C. “Jimmy” Bradford Jr. worked alongside one another for decades at J.C. Bradford & Co., an investment banking and brokerage firm, but it wasn’t until six years after Bradford’s death that the full prospectus of their journeys became clear. Simons, who was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in July 2016, has a […]
Women A skin exam should be part of your annual checkup, and you should regularly self-monitor all moles on your skin and report any changes to your physician. The National Breast Cancer Foundation recommends that all adult women do a monthly breast self-exam. Ages 21-29 Clinical breast exam every one to three years to […]
A clinical trial that gives drugs for one type of cancer to patients with another type of cancer may seem like a mix-and-match approach, but it’s actually a highly focused precision medicine initiative. The NCI-Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (NCI-MATCH) trial assigns drugs according to the genetic abnormalities of cancer cells instead of the […]
C-H-O-L-A-N-G-I-O-C-A-R-C-I-N-O-M-A. Anne Wolfe asked the doctor to spell it out. She had come to see Kamran Idrees, M.D., a surgical oncologist at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) knowing that she had a malignancy in her liver, but she didn’t know the type of cancer that had secretly invaded the organ. “He looked at me and said […]
Social worker Cindy Tinker Hancock, LMSW, imagines the internal monologues that pass through the minds of people she encounters at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC). “Wait a minute—how did this happen?” she wonders aloud, slipping into a patient’s shoes, “I have a stage IV diagnosis and I can’t work. “I need to apply for disability or […]
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 […]
When Carol Eck, R.N., MBA, began her nursing career in 1976, she never envisioned she would serve in a leadership role at one of the top cancer centers in the nation. “I thought I would always be a bedside nurse, and I never thought I would work in oncology. But I can’t imagine being anywhere […]
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 […]
