News: Radiation Oncology

Combining immunotherapy and radiation therapy may be a powerful treatment approach for castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Lisa Kachnic, MD, has been named professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. She will step down from her role as Vanderbilt’s Radiation Oncology leader on June 30 and will continue her service at VUMC through August.

Austin Kirschner, MD, PhD, and colleagues have studied the mechanism of radiation sensitization for enzalutamide using multiple models of human prostate cancer.

Precision radiation therapy helped treat patient Imogene Stranch’s cancer.

A potential cancer drug aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of ionizing radiation in lung cancer patients is a step closer to development with funding support from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Department of Radiation Oncology is offering survivorship care in Clarksville, Tennessee, via telemedicine to patients after they complete curative treatment.

Radiation-induced pulmonary fibrosis — tissue scarring that can permanently impair lung function — limits the delivery of therapeutic radiation doses to non-small cell lung cancer. To develop strategies for preventing or reducing fibrosis, Michael Freeman, Ph.D., and colleagues are exploring the cell types and factors that contribute to the radiation-induced fibrotic response.

Artist Rhonda Jennette, second from right, donated animal-themed art for display in the Radiation Oncology department. Shown here with Jennette are, from left, Mark Stavas, M.D., Leslie Mader, R.N., OCN, and Eric Shinohara, M.D., MSCI. (photo by Susan Urmy)

In her life, Jessi Zazu, 27, has toured the world as a musician in the group Those Darlins, recorded three studio albums, starred in music videos and exhibited her original artwork in individual and group art shows. With parents who are artists and a father and grandfather who played music, Zazu was destined to inherit […]

Karen Munyon, MBA, director of Finance and Operations for Radiation Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), has been appointed to the Tennessee Radiologic Imaging and Radiation Therapy Board of Examiners. She is one of nine individuals appointed by the Tennessee governor or state lawmakers to the newly created oversight board. Karen Munyon, MBA While […]