Dr. David Sugarbaker, M.D., the Director of the Lung Institute at Baylor College of Medicine and Chief of General Thoracic Surgery, is often referred to as “Mr. Mesothelioma” by his colleagues and continues to be a pioneer in the treatment of this aggressive form of cancer. Sugarbaker has earned the respect of peers and patients through his medical innovations that have resulted in a lower mortality rate and extended life expectancy for mesothelioma patients. Prior to his work in the Houston clinic, Sugarbaker served as the Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he worked for 25 years.
During his time at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, he pioneered an aggressive method of surgery called “extrapleural pneumonectomy” (EPP), involving the removal of cancerous lungs, organ linings, and other areas of the body affected by pleural mesothelioma. This procedure is typically performed on patients who are still in the early stages of the illness and before it has had a chance to spread beyond the chest. While it has been praised for its success in allowing surgeons to remove all cancerous tissue in many patients, those in the later stages of mesothelioma generally are not candidates for EPP because its main goal is to prevent the cancer from spreading. Those who have undergone EPP often are given an additional 19 months life expectancy, in addition to better quality of life.
He also was an important innovator of multimodal treatment (or “tri-modal therapy”), an approach to particularly aggressive cancers such a mesothelioma that involves a combination of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. The type of therapies used – and the order in which they are used – depends on the patient and how far along the illness has progressed. For example, a patient with later-stage mesothelioma who is therefore ineligible for EPP may be treated first with chemotherapy, followed by surgery if the tumors were successfully shrunk. He also employed a method called intrapleural chemotherapy, in which the drugs are applied directly to the pleural lining (as opposed to affecting the entire body).
Pleural mesothelioma has been Sugarbaker’s professional focus since 1988, when he returned to Brigham & Women’s Hospital (where he began as a resident) following a two-year intensive cardiothoracic training at the University of Toronto. He also was named Chief of the hospital’s brand-new Division of Thoracic Surgery that same year. Additionally, Sugarbaker was instrumental in the establishment of Brigham & Women’s Hospital’s Tissue and Blood Repository in 1989. With the ambitious goal of finding a cure for mesothelioma, Sugarbaker founded the International Mesothelioma Program in 2002.
Sugarbaker continues to lead innovation and collaboration in both research and clinical practice at Baylor in Houston, beginning in 2014, leading the esteemed institution’s Lung Institute with an emphasis on malignant pleural mesothelioma. As a testament to his success and commitment to care, several of his Boston patients traveled to the Texas clinic to continue their treatment under his guidance. Much of his research has been published, including a study of the challenges posed by EPP and ways to overcome them published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery in 1992.
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