Breast screenings saves lives, and the James Cancer Hospital’s Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center is a world leader in providing screenings, such as mammograms. “I really care about each and every patient and I want to make sure every woman has access to good health care and knows that we’re here to help then through this,” said Amy Kerger, DO, a diagnostic radiologist and mammogram expert. In this episode, Kerger explains the history of breast screening, which dates back more than...

The James provides a comprehensive survivorship program for patients and their families. “People are living longer with cancer and how do we make sure they have the best quality of life during their treatment and the years beyond,” said Denise Schimming, APRN-CNP, a certified nurse practitioner and survivorship specialist. Schimming and Julie DeBord, MSW, LISW-S, manager of JamesCare for Life, discussed the history, growth, the numerous and growing number of programs they offer and how they...

The James Cancer and Aging Resiliency (CARE) clinic is a leader in treating older cancer patients. Patients have been treated with blood and bone marrow transplants (BMTs) for more than 40 years, but, initially, only younger patients were eligible. “There was a bar set as low as 40-years-old when this was a brand-new technology,” said Sarah Wall, MD, MPH, a James hematologist who specializes in treating patients with blood cancers. “Then it was 55 and 60 and 65 and now there is no official...

Pelotonia has changed Joe Apgar’s life. “I’ll never forget how I felt in the moment someone told me I had cancer,” the CEO of Pelotonia said in this episode. “You feel completely lost and by yourself and you don’t have answers to the questions running around through your head.” Apgar was diagnosed with testicular cancer while a student at Penn State. Pelotonia is the fundraising cycling event that has raised more than $285 million for cancer research at the James. Apgar first rode in 2011,...

Because adrenal cancer is so rare, very few cancer hospitals have specialists equipped to treat patients and perform research and offer clinical trials for this type of cancer. “Very few physicians ever see a case in their lifetime and so there are a lot of physicians out there who don’t really understand the disease process,” said Barbra Miller, MD, the co-director of the James Multidisciplinary Adrenal Clinic. “I want to make sure patients get good, consistent and comprehensive and safe...

A breast cancer diagnosis in 2011 changed the life and career path of Jessica Winter. “It was a really defining moment in my career,” said Winter, PhD, an Ohio State professor of engineering, and a member of the Ohio State Cancer Engineering Center. “I could have kept doing research and publishing papers … but now I really wanted to do translational work and take something from the lab to patients.” Winter is a leader in the growing field of utilizing nanotechnology for cancer science and...

Knowing your family’s medical history is important and can save lives. “When we think of family history in terms of cancer genetics [and inherited genetic mutations], we think about a broad spectrum of relatives, more than just your parents and siblings,” said Leigha Senter, MS, CGC, a James licensed genetic counselor. “We ask about grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and that can inform us about how likely you have a hereditary predisposition for cancer.” Ohio State and the James...

The number of younger patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer is on the rise. “We always used to say at age 50 get your first colorectal screening, and now we’ve dropped that to 45,” said Samuel Akinyeye, MD, an Ohio State gastroenterologist. “And the reason is we’re seeing younger people being diagnosed with colorectal cancer … I’m seeing younger patients in my clinic.” In this episode, Akinyeye discusses several of the reasons for the increase, including the impact of unhealthy diets and...

To kick off Pelotonia 2024 Launch Week, this is a special re-release of episode 155, “The Next Leaps Forward in Cancer Treatment, with Guest Co-Host Raph Pollock.” The new version of this episode now includes an introduction and conclusion from Joe Apgar, Pelotonia CEO. Each of the James scientists and physicians featured in this episode has been funded by Pelotonia. Hearing directly from these individuals about the continued progress, groundbreaking research, and treatment advancements is...

Clinical trials are “the foundation of cancer research and lead to better treatment options and outcomes for patients,” said John Hays, MD, PhD, a James medical oncologist who treat patients with peritoneal cancers. He is also one of the leaders of the James clinical trials office and “at any given time we have between 500 to 600 clinical trial open and we put 1,000 patients a year on clinical trials, which is one of the largest numbers in the country.” In this episode, Hays explained the...

The foods we eat can reduce or increase the risk of developing cancer over the course of a lifetime, according to Fred Tabung, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine. “Think of food as medicine,” he said, adding that “what you eat should be enjoyable, but we should also eat in a healthy way to reduce the risk of cancer.” In this episode, Tabung joined with Candice Schreiber, RDN, LS, CSO, a James dietician, to discuss the importance of a healthy diet, including...

The new James mobile lung cancer screening unit is on the road, traveling around the state of Ohio. This is a big step forward because “lung cancer still accounts for more cancer deaths than breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer combined,” said Michael Wert, MD, a James pulmonologist and director of the James lung cancer screening program. “I still see too many patients who haven’t seen a doctor in a while, ignore symptoms and come in so sick that we’ll do a CT scan and find they...

Advances in cancer research and treatment are accelerating at a rapid pace. We asked several James scientists and physicians to tell us about an advancement that has them especially excited. Their answers were fascinating and filled with hope. This special episode was co-hosted by Raphael Pollock, MD, PhD, director of the Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center. “We’ve recruited more than 200 new members to the cancer center in the past four years, that’s more that most cancer centers in the...

The future of cancer care has arrived at Ohio State with the opening of the region’s first proton therapy center. While there are a handful of cancer hospitals around the globe that offer proton radiation treatment, The James proton therapy center offers the “most advanced proton radiation therapy in the world,” according to Arnab Chakravarti, MD, chair of the department of radiation oncology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research...

With advances in care and research, along with the opening of new, state-of-the-art facilities, 2023 was another big year in Ohio State’s work to create a cancer-free world. “These are really exciting times for our cancer program, as we continue to broaden our facilities and access, and further the innovation of treatments, technologies and expertise that offer tomorrow’s treatments today,” says David Cohn, MD, MBA, interim CEO and chief medical officer of The James Cancer Hospital and...

Understanding the progression of a cancerous head and neck tumor, “how it started and how it evaded the immune system and got into the blood stream and spread provides a wealth of information we can utilize and gives us more treatment options,” said James Rocco, a head and neck cancer specialist and chair of the James Cancer Hospital’s Head and Neck Surgery Department. In this episode, Rocco discusses how he and his collaborators have developed a computational data analytics program called...

Global warming, climate change and the increase in wildfires, weather events, emissions from fossil fuels and hotter temperatures will have a negative health impact, according to Lauren Koch, the Sustainability Program Manager for The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Marium Husain, MD, a James medical oncologist who specializes in treating patients with soft tissue and bone sarcomas. In this episode, the two discuss how global warming and climate change could increase the...

The goal of the OSUCCC – James Center for Cancer Engineering is simple. “We’re not trying to engineer cancer; we’re using engineering processes and principles to better diagnose and cure cancer,” said Matthew Ringel, MD, co-director of the Center along with Jonathan Song, PhD. The Center is a collaborative effort between the James, the College of Engineering, College of Arts and Sciences and several other colleges across Ohio State. “We’re taking advantage of the incredible people we have...

“Inflammatory breast cancer is very aggressive and rare and a lot of times the diagnosis can be missed,” said Margaret Gatti-Mays, MD, MPH, a medical oncologist who specializes in breast cancer and is one of the leaders of the Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center’s Inflammatory Breast Cancer Program. In this episode, she explains that this rare form of breast cancer “accounts for less than 2 percent of all breast cancers, adding that “one-third of all inflammatory breast cancers will...

“We are constantly evolving,” said Roman Skoracki, MD, medical director of the Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center. "There are so many exciting things go on." In this episode, Skoracki fills us in on some of these advances, including enhanced breast cancer screening technology; a program to reach out to women in underserved urban and rural areas to provide screening mammograms; a High-Risk Breast Cancer Program; innovative clinical trials, a new, Inflammatory Breast Cancer Program;...

Richard Wu, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist who specializes in skin cancer and melanomas and the early development of new drugs. One of the new cancer treatments Wu is helping to develop is TIL – which stands for tumor infiltrating therapy. T cells in the immune system are programmed to locate and destroy cancer cells. “We take and isolate T cells from each patient’s unique tumor and expand them to billions of T cells in the lab and then reinfuse them back into the patient,” Wu explained....

The next chapter in the career of Peter Shields, MD, has begun. “Now I get to do what I started out doing … seeing patients and doing research,” he said. Shields recently stepped down as deputy director of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, a position he has held for more than a decade. Under his leadership, the Center continued to grow at a rapid rate and has become established as one of the leading cancer-research institutions in the world. But Shields, a lung-cancer...

CAR T cell therapy is revolutionizing the treatment of many leukemia and lymphoma patients. “For our relapsed leukemia and lymphoma patients we found some really impressive responses with these clinical trials,” said Samantha Jaglowski, MD, associate director for clinical operations and quality of the Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program. In this episode, Part 1 or a two-part series on the James Cellular Therapy Program, Jaglowski explains the basics of CAR T cell therapy....

The team approach has helped Joel Mayerson, MD, build one of the nation’s largest and best sarcoma cancer programs. Treating sarcoma patients “is a team sport,” said the director of the James Sarcoma Program. “And we use tri-modality care – medical oncologists for chemotherapy, radiation oncologists for soft-tissue sarcomas … and surgeons.” Mayerson has been at the James since 2001 and, under his leadership, the sarcoma team has grown significantly. The tri-modality model of patient care is...