The 12th Annual Thoracic Oncology Conference will be held on Saturday, November 20, 2010 at the Stanford Court Hotel in San Francisco. It will be a one-day conference highlighting updates in lung cancer, mesothelioma and sarcoma and other mets to the lung/chest. It will feature national leaders in the field, as well as case presentations and panel discussions. The intended audience is practicing physicians and nurses in the areas of internal medicine, oncology, radiation oncology, pulmonology, and surgery in the Bay Area and Northwestern United States. The conference is being offered through Aspen/PESI LLC, an accredited CME provider.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Physicians in the UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program provide state-of-the-art care to patients with lung cancer, mesothelioma, esophageal cancer, sarcoma and cancer that has metastasized to the chest. The program is led by David M. Jablons, M.D., Chief of the Section of General Thoracic Surgery and Program Leader of the Thoracic Oncology Program. Patients receive treatment from a dedicated multidisciplinary team of specialists. At UCSF, one of the world's leading biomedical research centers, patients also have access to clinical trials for promising new drugs. Specialists from many areas work collaboratively to diagnose patients and custom tailor treatments. At the weekly Tumor Board Conference, physicians present the most challenging cases and receive advice and recommendations from the group.
We are proud to be a regional, national, and international referral center for lung cancer. Our surgeons are known for their willingness to be aggressive in the appropriate case. We are also a high volume center for thoracic surgery, the largest on the West Coast. Our post-operative mortality rates are among the lowest anywhere. We have extensive experience in performing minimally invasive thoracic surgery. That means shorter hospital stays, less post-operative pain, and a more rapid return to normal activities. For patients who need chemotherapy after surgery, it means they can begin their treatment faster and are better able to tolerate higher doses.
The Thoracic Oncology Program at UC Davis Cancer Center, directed by David R. Gandara, M.D., is a national and international center of excellence for lung cancer therapy. It is the largest and most comprehensive program in Northern California, providing a wide array of clinical and research services, ranging from prevention strategies to new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. In addition to lung cancer, expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of other thoracic malignancies, such as mesothelioma, esophageal cancer and thymoma, is available.
Composed of a multi-disciplinary team of experts in medical oncology, pulmonary medicine, thoracic surgery, radiation oncology, pathology and radiology, our program includes nationally prominent clinicians and researchers who meet weekly at the Thoracic Oncology Tumor Board to coordinate evaluation and treatment strategies for each new patient, in effect providing "one-stop shopping" by combining the opinions of approximately 20 different team members.
Our Thoracic Oncology specialists rank among the country's leading lung cancer researchers, designing and conducting clinical trials of promising investigational therapies that often become the recognized standards nationally and internationally. Clinical trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute are available for almost every situation and stage of lung cancer.
