Focus On Cancer

Gene-editing tools that make the body smarter in fighting cancer. Robots that help surgeons more precisely excise a tumor. Screening technologies that can spot lung tumors the size of a grain of rice. This gee-whiz age of innovation and technological genius looks a lot different than the horse-and-buggy era of the early 1900s when today’s everyday essentials like anesthesia and antiseptic surgeries were only beginning to catch on. And there are even more groundbreaking opportunities on the horizon. On today’s episode of Focus on Cancer, our host, Pat Basu, MD, MBA, President & CEO of Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), welcomes entrepreneur and technology-sector leader John Bardis to map out the progress, and the promise, of technological advances—yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Important progress is being made in the fight against cancer—namely, cancer incidence and death rates continue to fall across the United States. But some minority groups are immune to those advances, negatively impacted by a cancer-disparities trend that disproportionately impacts certain racial, ethnic and socioeconomic demographics—none more than the African-American community. In this episode of Focus on Cancer, our host, Pat Basu, MD, MBA, President & CEO of Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), welcomes Anita Johnson, MD, Breast Cancer Program Director at CTCA®, for a robust conversation around the impact of cancer disparities, and what we can do to address them.

When you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, you quickly learn that fighting the disease itself is only half the battle. There are also other impacts on your life—from side effects like pain and nausea to changes in your relationships to learning to manage long-term effects as a survivor after treatment. That’s why it’s important to have an integrative care plan that incorporates side-effect management, social support, and survivorship into your cancer treatment regimen. On this episode of Focus on Cancer, our host, Pat Basu, MD, MBA, President & CEO of Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), welcomes Carolyn Lammersfeld, Vice President of Integrative Care Services at CTCA®, for a robust discussion on integrative care and its important role in the cancer journey.

It’s been nearly 70 years since Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. In the decades since, our evolving understanding of the human genome has had a profound impact on treatment advances for diseases like cancer. To commemorate Watson and Crick’s groundbreaking discovery, and the mapping of the full human genome 50 years later, DNA Day was designated as a time of public reflection and education around genetics and genomics. To celebrate the occasion, our host, Pat Basu, MD, MBA, President & CEO of Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), and his guest, CTCA® Genetic Counselor Eric Fowler, discuss the role genetic testing and counseling play in the cancer journey.

With a cancer diagnosis comes many worries and questions—what will treatment be like? How do I tell my friends and family? For many cancer patients, the diagnosis also comes with existential questions about life, the world around them and their place in it. Some find solace, meaning and purpose through the guidance of a spiritual support program—an increasingly important part of the integrative care model for patients of faith. What exactly is spiritual support, and what role does it play in the cancer journey? On this episode of Focus on Cancer, our host, Pat Basu, MD, MBA, President & CEO of Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), sits down with Rev. Percy McCray Jr., Director of Faith-Based Programs at CTCA®, to answer these and other questions.

For Marnee Spierer, MD, fighting breast cancer is more than a job. It’s also a family legacy that’s impacted at least three generations of the women in her family. So, when her sister became the latest to be diagnosed with the disease, Dr. Spierer—Radiation Oncologist and Chief of Staff and Chief of Radiation Oncology at Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), Phoenix—was faced with some very personal decisions. In today’s episode of Focus on Cancer, Dr. Spierer joins our host, Pat Basu, MD, MBA, President and CEO of CTCA®, to talk about her experience with genetic testing and counseling, what led her to decide to undergo a prophylactic mastectomy and learning firsthand—as an oncologist and a woman—about the importance of managing your risk of cancer.