DF/HCC Program Affiliation

Lung Cancer
Cancer Cell Biology

Research Abstract

The elderly patient is particularly susceptible to suffer morbidity after major thoracic surgical procedures. Previous work from Brigham & Women's Hospital has shown that this subgroup has a thirteen-fold higher incidence of postoperative dementia after non-cardiac thoracic surgery. The full recovery time from major thoracic surgical procedures is poorly understood in this subgroup. This is an extremely pertinent issue. Current data are unavailable to advise the eighty-five-year-old patient with a presumed early stage lung cancer as to which treatment option may be expected to maximize the future quality of life. New instruments of measurement are required to address these issues. I am currently developing clinical measurements of the elderly patient's functional status, motivation for surgery, understanding of surgery, and quality of life. I plan to test these measurements in our outpatient elderly population over the next year.

Publications

• Moore KA, Mery CM, Jaklitsch MT, P Estocin A, Bueno R, Swanson SJ, Sugarbaker DJ, Lukanich JM.Menopausal effects on presentation, treatment, and survival of women with non-small cell lung cancer.Ann Thorac Surg 2003 Dec;76(6):1789-95.
  14667585
• Gordon GJ, Richards WG, Sugarbaker DJ, Jaklitsch MT, Bueno R.A prognostic test for adenocarcinoma of the lung from gene expression profiling data.Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2003 Sep;12(9):905-10.
  14504202
• Soiffer R, Hodi FS, Haluska F, Jung K, Gillessen S, Singer S, Tanabe K, Duda R, Mentzer S, Jaklitsch M, Bueno R, Clift S, Hardy S, Neuberg D, Mulligan R, Webb I, Mihm M, Dranoff G.Vaccination with irradiated, autologous melanoma cells engineered to secret
  12947071
• Jaklitsch MT, Mery CM, Audisio RA.The use of surgery to treat lung cancer in elderly patients.Lancet Oncol 2003 Aug;4(8):463-71.
  12901960