Press Releases

Two Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center faculty leaders will give invited talks during symposium sessions as the Society for Surgical Oncology (SSO) gathers this week for the 2023 International Conference on Surgical Cancer Care in Boston, Mass.

In recognition of the superior experience it has provided for patients over several years, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has been designated by Press Ganey as a 2022 Human Experience (HX) Pinnacle of Excellence Award winner.

As it celebrates the achievements of some of the nation’s most respected and accomplished doctors, healthcare information resource Castle Connolly has recognized seven Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center physician-oncologists as Exceptional Women in Medicine.

Underscoring Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s ability to attract top clinical and research talent, Deputy Director Renier Brentjens, MD, PhD, has named physician-scientist Peter Maslak, MD, as Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs and Technical Director of the Clinical Flow Cytometry Laboratory.

Patients with esophageal cancer typically face a poor prognosis, largely because the disease is advanced at the time of diagnosis — and progress toward more-effective therapies has lagged. Now, armed with encouraging results from previous clinical trials, researchers at Roswell Park have launched two phase 2 clinical trials for esophageal cancer. Their goal: to determine whether a beta blocker called propranolol (brand name Inderal) can improve the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy. Approved by the FDA in 1968, propranolol is commonly used to treat high blood pressure.

Vaping cannabidiol (CBD), a compound found in marijuana, leads to more severe lung damage than vaping nicotine, according to a study out of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Until now, research on the health effects of vaping, or using e-cigarettes, has focused almost exclusively on vaping nicotine as opposed to CBD. Previous research has documented the effects of smoking cannabis, but the effects of vaping cannabinoids such as CBD were not previously known.

During the 2023 American Physical Therapy Association’s (APTA) Combined Sections Meeting, to be held February 23-25 in San Diego, California, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center physical therapists Carolyn Miller, DPT, and Hillary Jacobson, DPT, will present on a case study that showed benefits in utilizing body-weight support training as part of a cancer patient’s rehabilitation program. Andrew Ray, PhD, PT, Rehabilitation Specialist and co-author of the study, is co-moderating the oncology platform session.

Patients with early-stage estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer who live in low-income neighborhoods are likelier to have more-aggressive tumors and significantly lower overall survival (OS) than those in higher-income neighborhoods, according to research led by Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. The study, “Association of neighborhood-level household income with 21-gene recurrence score and survival among patients with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer,” appears today in JAMA Network Open.

Two experts from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center are delivering presentations this week at an international conference highlighting research aimed at extending and improving the lives of patients with blood-related cancers. Nataliya Buxbaum, MD, from the Department of Pediatric Oncology and Marco Davila, MD, PhD, Vice Chair for Cellular Therapies and Senior Vice President and Associate Director for Translational Research, were invited to highlight their work in podium talks at the 2023 Tandem Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Meetings of the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT) and Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) this week in Orlando, Florida.