On June 26, 2020, Maheen Porter, then age 30, called her husband, Austin, into the bedroom of their Nashville-area home to join a phone call from a nurse practitioner at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Porter sat down on the floor for the call, which concerned results of her recent breast mass biopsy. The nurse informed the […]
When the first cancer patients in Tennessee underwent chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in 2015, they had to be hospitalized for two months and closely monitored for serious reactions. Those clinical trials by oncologists at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and other academic centers nationwide led to the approval of the powerful new immunotherapy for patients […]
G. Lee Bryant Jr., MD, remembers when he first noticed something odd about his right thumb. In December 2016, a streak of redness appeared under his thumbnail, and splitting at the nail’s end never seemed to resolve. That concern – and the path it put him on – ultimately led Bryant to create a blog […]
Cristina Kline-Quiroz, DO, is a physiatrist and assistant professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation who specializes in cancer rehabilitation — a specialty many people may not know exists. As the only fellowship-trained cancer rehabilitation physiatrist in Tennessee, she works alongside her colleagues across multiple rehabilitation disciplines to provide highly individualized care for patients at Vanderbilt-Ingram […]
A health care system model that offered tobacco cessation treatment to smokers being discharged from a hospital produced a higher rate of tobacco abstinence during the three-month program than referral to a state-based telephone quitline, but the advantage disappeared at six months when both treatments produced comparable quit rates, researchers have found. In a study […]
Damaris Olagundoye, MD, grew up knowing that her maternal grandmother was a breast cancer survivor. She would listen as her mother talked with cousins who had also been diagnosed with the disease, but her family didn’t learn until decades later that they carried a mutation in the BRCA2 gene. Her mother’s heritage was Afro Panamanian, […]
Twenty years ago, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) established the nation’s first Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) to focus exclusively on colorectal cancer, the second leading cancer killer after lung cancer. Directed by Robert J. Coffey, MD, and continuously funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) since 2002, the gastrointestinal (GI) SPORE has fostered a […]
Fifty-three years after U.S. astronauts became the first humans to walk on the moon, VICC researchers are participating in an equally audacious adventure—a “Cancer Moonshot” aimed at cracking the conundrum of colorectal cancer. Funded through the $1.8 billion 21st Century Cures Act passed by Congress in 2016, the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative has […]
Claudia Barajas recently put on headphones at El Jefe, a Nashville-based Hispanic radio station, to moderate an information-packed discussion about lung cancer prevention and the importance of screenings for individuals at higher risk of developing lung cancer. Her Spanish-speaking guest was Rafael Paez, MD, a clinical fellow in the Department of Medicine, Division of Allergy, […]
Charlotte Ladd’s work history has been a series of serendipitous opportunities ranging from investment banking to oncology nursing to teaching immigrant nurses in Florida. But it’s her work as a volunteer at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center that has brought her the greatest joy. Ladd volunteers on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the waiting room of the Henry-Joyce […]
