Benjamin Kozower
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
People diagnosed with early, stage I lung cancer have two recommended options: surgery to remove the tumor, or stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), a precise, high-dose radiation treatment delivered in a few sessions. CT scans and lung cancer screening now catch more tumors at this stage, when the chance of cure is above 70%.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
lung cancer
stereotactic body radiation therapy
thoracic surgery
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2028
What they work on
- Compare 3-year disease-free survival after surgery versus stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in patients with clinical stage I non-small cell lung cancer, using propensity score–matched cohorts from a multi-center prospective study.
- Test whether SBRT gives better short-term and similar long-term patient-reported outcomes than surgery, measuring quality of life with the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) questionnaires.
- Test the hypothesis that SBRT causes fewer and less severe treatment-related complications than surgery, while surgery gives longer disease-free survival, in prospectively followed stage I lung cancer patients.
- Build and validate regression-based models that predict disease-free survival and patient-reported outcomes for an individual stage I lung cancer patient, and deliver them as a web-based decision tool.
More about the research
Even so, no one knows which treatment works better for which patient. Attempts at randomized trials comparing the two have closed early because too few patients enrolled, so choices often rest on hospital habit and doctor opinion.
Why it matters
Patients with stage I lung cancer and their doctors currently choose between surgery and radiation with little direct evidence. Head-to-head data on cancer control and quality of life, plus a validated web tool that predicts an individual patient's likely outcomes, could help match each patient to the treatment that fits them best. It would also set a benchmark for personalized treatment choice in lung cancer.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Xiaofeng Yang
Emory University, GA·Biomedical Engineering
Develop and refine a deep learning method that reconstructs real-time on-board volumetric images from very few two-dimensional projections for direct, markerless three-dimensional lung tumor tracking.
Gita Mody
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify the optimal survey and alert features and clinic workflow for an electronic patient-reported outcome (ePRO) system that monitors symptoms after thoracic surgery.
Shailesh Singh
Morehouse School of Medicine, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Establish whether signaling between the CCR6 receptor and its chemokine partner CCL20 is associated with non-small cell lung cancer aggressiveness and therapeutic response in African American and European American patients.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
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