University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Hillman Cancer Center Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Professor, Department of Surgery University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Director, National Cancer Institute Cooperative Group Clinical Trials University of Pittsburgh Hillman Cancer Center On behalf of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP)
Identifying factors that are responsible for late distant metastatic recurrence of invasive lobular carcinoma.
Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is the second most common type of breast cancer after the more common invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). ILC has unique features compared to IDC, including metastatic spread to unusual sites such as the stomach and the ovaries, and a propensity for late distant metastatic recurrences, sometimes even 15-20 years after initial diagnosis. However, there is very little clinical research being exclusively conducted in ILC and thus the reasons for these characteristics are not well understood. Clinical trials almost always group ILC and IDC together, which has led to a knowledge gap in our understanding of long-term outcomes of patients with ILC. Dr. Wolmark is leading research by the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) to uncover drivers of late distant metastatic recurrences in patients with ILC.
Long-term work by Dr. Wolmark and the NSABP has enabled the analysis of clinical data to compare long-term survival between patients with ILC and IDC from four large NSABP clinical trials of chemotherapy regimens for the treatment of early-stage breast cancer. An earlier study confirmed that patients with ILC were more likely to experience late breast cancer recurrences beyond the first five years from diagnosis than patients with IDC. Their current project is to identify factors that are specifically associated with late, distant metastatic recurrences in of ILC by sequencing the genes of patient tumor specimens and creating a genetic signature that could help identify patients who are at risk for late recurrences. Being able to identify this set of patients would allow for personalized treatment, which may be able to prevent late recurrences and save lives.
Dr. Norman Wolmark, MD, is Chairman of NSABP Foundation, a not-for-profit academic research organization with a nearly 60-year history of conducting ground-breaking research studies in breast and colorectal cancer.
He is also Professor and Chairman of Human Oncology at Drexel University School of Medicine. Dr. Wolmark received his medical degree from McGill University of Montreal, and he completed his residency at the University of Pittsburgh. He served a fellowship in Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and he later became a cancer expert at the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Wolmark belongs to numerous prestigious organizations including the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association of Cancer Research, and the American Surgical Association.
Over his near 45-year tenure as a cancer researcher, Dr. Wolmark is extensively published, with more than 400 scientific journal articles and book chapters in print. He is a widely sought-after speaker and lecturer in his field and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Women’s Cancer, The Journal of Clinical Oncology, and numerous advisory boards, and as an advisor to oncology programs, societies, and institutes throughout the United States and abroad.
Devoted to the evolution of large randomized clinical trials for the treatment and prevention of breast and bowel cancers, he is also a reviewer for The Journal of Clinical Oncology and the New England Journal of Medicine, and he is an editorial board member of the Journal of Women’s Cancer and Clinical Breast Cancer.
2012
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