Department News

ASTRO Members Receive Fellows Designation

(August 13, 2024)

American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has selected 48 members to receive ASTRO fellow designation during the 2024 ASTRO Annual Meeting, including Dimitris N. Mihailidis, PhD, an associate professor of Clinical Radiation Oncology, and Ying Xiao, PhD, a professor of Radiation Oncology.

HemOnc Today

JAK Inhibitors Improve Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

(August 9, 2024)

Two separate clinical trials have found that a class of drugs that stymie inflammation may improve the effectiveness of commonly used immunotherapies. In both trials—one involving people with lung cancer and the other with lymphoma—adding a JAK inhibitor to an immune checkpoint inhibitor shrank tumors in more than half of the participants. Andy Minn, MD, PhD, a professor of Radiation Oncology, who helped to lead the lung cancer study, noted that both studies reached the same conclusion, “which to me is just really remarkable and provides a lot of motivation and hope that we’re on to something.”

National Cancer Institute

Five Questions with ASTRO’s President-elect, Neha Vapiwala, MD

(August 7, 2024)

Neha Vapiwala, MD, the Eli Glatstein endowed professor and vice chair in the department of Radiation Oncology and dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, is the incoming president of ASTRO. Vapiwala speaks about how her career has prepared her for this role, her top priorities during her term, the importance of other women seeing her at the helm of a national society, and the legacy she hopes to leave on the medical field.

Healio

Penn Medicine Plans Fourth Proton Therapy Center

(July 30, 2024)

Penn Medicine has embarked on a multi-year project to bring proton therapy to a fourth location in the region and stay ahead of advancements in the field. The major components of the project include upgrading PCAM’s 14-year-old Roberts Proton Therapy Center and building a new proton therapy center at PPMC. Radiation Oncology Chair James Metz, MD, explains this expansion is designed to meet future patient care and research needs.

Philadelphia Business Journal • Philadelphia Inquirer

Neha Vapiwala Voted President-Elect of ASTRO

(July 18, 2024)

The members of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) have selected Neha Vapiwala, MD, the Eli Glatstein Professor in Radiation Oncology, as president-elect of the society. She is the first Penn faculty member to lead the premier society for radiation oncology professionals and will take office as president-elect on Oct. 1, 2024, at ASTRO’s 66th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

Penn Medicine News Release • ASCO Post • AuntMinnie.com • Imaging Technology News

PSOM Faculty Honored with Excellence in Teaching Awards

(July 1, 2024)

In April, PSOM's inaugural Excellence in Teaching Awards ceremony awarded Master’s and Certificate Programs faculty Rafe McBeth, PhD, of Clinical Radiation Oncology, Laura Conway, PhD, associate director of the Master of Science in Genetic Counseling program, and Marilyn Schapira, MD, MPH, director of the Internal Medicine Fellowship program, for their ability to inspire students to apply what they’ve learned in their careers. They exhibited innovative assessment, effective communication, and impactful course content delivery.

New Immunotherapy Combination Could ‘Change the Landscape’ of Cancer Treatment

(June 21, 2024)

Adding an anti-inflammatory drug to anti-PD1 checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy has shown great promise as a new strategy against advanced lung cancer. The approach "could help control inflammation and interferon levels before they become detrimental,” said co-senior author Andy Minn, MD, PhD, a professor of Radiation Oncology.

STAT News

FLASH forward to an ultra-fast new form of radiation

(May 29, 2024)

Researchers at Penn Medicine are pioneering a new type of radiation therapy that could force textbooks to be rewritten. For decades, the concept of “fractionation” has been dogma in radiation oncology. A total dose of radiation is divided into smaller doses, or fractions, delivered to the patient in a series of treatments over days or weeks. But an experimental new form of radiation, known as FLASH, upends that tried-and-true approach. “The traditional idea is that by fractionating radiation, we can kill tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue. FLASH turns this idea on its head,” said Constantinos Koumenis, PhD, the Richard H. Chamberlain Professor of Radiation Oncology at Penn Medicine.

The power of protons

(May 29, 2024)

The Roberts Proton Therapy Center at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center opened in 2010 as the largest and busiest center in the world for proton therapy. That’s still true today, with more than 100 patients coming for treatment each day. Over the past two years, Penn Medicine has also expanded access to the specialized therapy by opening proton centers at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health in Lancaster.  James Metz, MD, chair and Henry K. Pancoast Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine said “Over the past decade and a half, we’ve developed new techniques, new technologies, and new imaging modalities that allow us to deliver proton therapy more effectively, now we can treat virtually every disease site with protons, and it’s a very important tool in our toolbox.”

Penn announces nine 2024 Thouron Scholars

(March 8, 2024)

George Morcos, from Rochester, New York, is majoring in biology with a concentration in molecular and cell biology, with minors in classical studies and nutrition in the College. As a University Scholar through the Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships, Morcos conducts research in the Koumenis Lab in Penn Medicine’s Department of Radiation Oncology. He is also a writing fellow at the Marks Family Center for Excellence in Writing and an advising fellow in the student club Matriculate, which provides mentorship to high school students. He is an undergraduate coordinator at the Heart Health Bridge to Care, an extension of the United Community Clinic of West Philadelphia focused primarily on management of hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. Morcos is an American Association of Cancer Research Undergraduate Scholar and has presented his work at national conferences. As a Thouron Scholar, Morcos plans to pursue a master’s degree in pathology, conducting basic and translational research on therapeutic toxicities in cancer, at the University of Cambridge in England.

Dose-Escalated Radiation Therapy for High-Risk Localized Prostate Cancer

(February 9, 2024)

For patients with high-risk prostate cancer, treatment with long-term androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and high-dose radiation was associated with significantly better survival compared with ADT and standard-dose radiation. Neha Vapiwala, MD, a professor of Radiation Oncology, who was not involved in the study, commented on the results during the 2024 American Society for Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

ASCO Post

Higher-Dose Radiation Therapy Extends Survival in High-Risk Prostate Cancer

(January 29, 2024)

For patients with high-risk prostate cancer, treatment with long-term androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and high-dose radiation was associated with significantly better survival compared with ADT and standard-dose radiation. Neha Vapiwala, MD, a professor of Radiation Oncology, who was not involved in the study, commented on the results during the 2024 American Society for Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Medscape • MDedge • MedPage Today

The Importance of Collaboration between Academic Medicine and Community Oncology Practices

(January 3, 2024)

Justin Bekelman, MD, a professor of Radiation Oncology and director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, joins the “Oncology Onward” podcast to discuss the importance of collaboration between academic medicine and community oncology, and testing innovative cancer care delivery in these settings.

AJMC