In January 2011, Harriet Wilson of Hartsville, Tennessee, began to experience pain in her left side, under her rib cage. Her primary care physician ran some tests, ruling out heart problems and shingles. However, blood work revealed something ominous: elevated liver enzymes. A CT scan helped diagnose the source of her pain: two advanced pancreatic […]
Researchers across the nation devoted to basic science—the people who mine the unknown and map out the pathways to new cancer drugs—have had their quest curtailed. Federal funding for their work plunged and then flatlined over the past decade. The cutbacks came after Congress had doubled the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) […]
Only a few treatment centers merit the National Cancer Institute’s highest designation: Comprehensive. Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) has had its designation renewed. One of 45 Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States, VICC will receive almost $30 million over five years to support its mission of delivering promising new therapies to patients, discovering new approaches […]
I deliberately tie the hospital gown two ways, left over right, right over left to see which best covers my mastectomy scar before exiting the changing room. As I open the door, my prosthetic breast falls out of the bra’s mesh pouch in the plastic bag provided for my belongings. I don’t want anyone to […]
After two years of worrying about a nodule in her lung, Emmy Edwards said yes to surgery. She could have flipped a coin had the stakes been smaller. A nonsmoker, Edwards had been more worried about heart disease than lung cancer when the tiny lesions showed up during a cardiac CT scan. They were in […]
It’s been nearly 20 years since Linda McVay was given 44 pages of job listings for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Determined, she read every single one hoping to find anything related to oncology. Finally on page 43 she saw the words she was searching for—medical oncology. McVay was working in a dental office after having […]
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 […]
Kachnic is new chair of Radiation Oncology Lisa Kachnic, M.D., is now professor and chair of the Vanderbilt Department of Radiation Oncology. She came to Vanderbilt from the Boston University School of Medicine, where she served as professor and chair of Radiation Oncology and associate director of Multidisciplinary Cancer Research. She was also the chief of […]
Protein identified as potential target for lung cancer treatment A protein that transports the amino acid glutamine is a potential biomarker and therapeutic target for non-small cell lung cancer, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers reported in the Oct. 1, 2015, International Journal of Cancer. Pierre Massion, M.D., Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Medicine, and colleagues demonstrated that […]
Jude Kee’s amber eyes are framed with brown glasses—the better to see his favorite “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” show, which he requests over and over again, or to read his favorite books, like “The Little Engine That Could” and “Llama Llama Hoppity-Hop.” Since he was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer in 2014, […]
