Chicago, IL – July 8, 2026 – A landmark study from the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, published today in JAMA, suggests lung transplantation can significantly extend survival in select patients with advanced lung cancer.

In a study of patients with medically refractory, lung-limited stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (patients with terminal lung cancer confined to the lungs who are out of treatment options), Northwestern Medicine physicians and scientists found that lung transplantation was associated with substantially better early survival than medical management (chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy, etc.) alone.

The study, titled “Lung Transplant for Refractory Lung-Limited Stage IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer,” evaluated outcomes from the Double Lung Transplant Registry for Lung-Limited Malignancies – known as the DREAM registry – a pioneering Northwestern Medicine program designed to test whether replacing lungs overtaken by treatment-resistant cancer can remove organ-confined disease and rescue patients dying of respiratory failure. Northwestern Medicine is currently the only known health system in the country with a dedicated lung transplant program (DREAM) for patients with advanced lung cancers who have failed all other treatment options.

“This work changes what we can imagine for a highly selected group of patients who were previously considered beyond the reach of curative-intent intervention,” said co-corresponding author Ankit Bharat, MD, who is chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute. “We are not saying lung transplant is appropriate for every patient with stage IV lung cancer. We are saying that when the cancer is rigorously proven to be confined to the lungs, when standard therapies have been exhausted, and when the lungs themselves have become the life-limiting organ, transplantation may offer a new path forward.”

KEY RESULTS AT A GLANCE

• Study population: 404 adults with end-stage pulmonary disease, including 98 with stage IV lung cancer; 17 underwent lung transplant and 81 received medical management alone after nonbiologic barriers prevented transplant.
• Comparison with patients who did not receive transplant: In the main study period (September 2021 through June 2025), every transplanted patient was alive, while fewer than half of similar patients treated with medical therapy alone were alive.
• Comparison with patients who received lung transplant for lung failure from non-cancer causes: One-year posttransplant survival among lung transplant patients was 100% for those transplanted for stage IV lung cancer vs 88% for patients transplanted without cancer.  

A devastating form of stage IV lung cancer

Cancers of the lung are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States with more people dying of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers.

Most patients with stage IV lung cancer have disease that has spread beyond the lungs. But a subset develops advanced non-small cell lung cancer that remains confined to the lungs, even as it progresses throughout both lungs and causes respiratory failure. These patients may exhaust targeted therapy, immunotherapy, chemotherapy and clinical trial options, yet still have no evidence of cancer outside the lungs. For these patients, the immediate cause of death is often not widespread systemic cancer, but progressive failure of cancer-filled lungs.

“This is a biologically distinct clinical scenario. These patients have stage IV cancer, but the disease remains anatomically limited to the lungs,” said co-corresponding author Young Kwang Chae, MD, MPH, who is a thoracic medical oncologist with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “In these rare select group of patients, DREAM provides us a disciplined, scientifically rigorous way to ask whether removing the organ containing all visible disease can change the natural history of an otherwise fatal condition.”

What the study found

The JAMA study included 404 adults treated or evaluated at Northwestern Medicine from September 2021 through June 2025 for end-stage pulmonary disease.

Among 98 patients with stage IV lung cancer confined to the lungs, 17 underwent lung transplant and 81 met transplant eligibility criteria but didn’t undergo transplant because of nonbiologic barriers such as logistical, financial or geographic factors, and were treated with medical management alone.

The results showed 100% one-year survival among the 17 patients with stage IV lung cancer who received a lung transplant, compared to 41% one-year survival among the 81 patients with stage IV lung cancer who were treated with medical therapies alone.  

The investigators also compared the lung cancer transplant recipients with 306 patients without cancer who underwent lung transplant for end-stage pulmonary disease such as cystic fibrosis, COPD or pulmonary hypertension. Between those two groups of patients, one-year posttransplant survival was 100% among the patients transplanted for stage IV lung cancer, versus 88% among lung transplant recipients without cancer.   

“Any time we consider expanding the use or donor lungs, organ stewardship must be central. These results suggest that, in carefully selected patients and in the right multidisciplinary setting, lung transplantation for lung-limited malignancy can achieve early outcomes that are comparable to accepted noncancer transplant indications,” said Dr. Bharat.

Why this approach is different

Lung cancer has long been considered a relative contraindication to lung transplantation due to the concern that lung cancer would rapidly recur in the transplanted lung. The Northwestern Medicine team designed the DREAM trial to determine whether modern cancer detection methods could identify patients whose cancer was limited to the lung, limiting the chances of recurrence.

Patients underwent comprehensive contemporary staging to confirm that disease was confined to the lungs, including advanced imaging and systematic invasive mediastinal evaluation to reduce the risk of missing cancer spread outside the lungs. Transplant was considered only after patients had medically refractory disease despite available systemic therapies and consideration for clinical trials.

The surgical strategy was also redesigned to minimize the risk of cancer dissemination during the operation.

“This innovative technique involves putting the patient on heart and lung bypass, delicately taking both cancer-ridden lungs out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, washing the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer, and then putting new lungs in,” said Dr. Bharat. “These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so we must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream. We believe this technique can help reduce the risk of recurrence, which we learned through our experience with pioneering COVID-19 lung transplants in 2020.”

The team also used single-cell transcriptomic analyses to study tumor regions across the removed lungs and investigate mechanisms of treatment resistance.

“Using state-of-the-art single-cell analysis of individual cancer cells from multiple regions of both cancer-filled lungs, we saw tumors that were profoundly resistant, with different cancer-cell populations relying on different resistance pathways. That helps explain why chemotherapy, immunotherapy and other systemic therapies could no longer meaningfully control the disease and why replacing the diseased lungs may be the only realistic option to extend life for these carefully selected patients,” said Dr. Bharat.

“The paradigm shift is not simply that transplant was performed for lung cancer. The shift is that transplantation was embedded within a complete scientific framework – rigorous staging, proof of lung-limited disease, transplant-specific operative innovation, intensive surveillance and molecular analysis of the explanted tumors. That is what makes this a new model of transplant oncology,” said co-corresponding author G.R. Scott Budinger, MD, chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Canning Thoracic Institute.

Recovery, recurrence and next steps

Postoperative outcomes among the transplant recipients with cancer were generally similar to those among transplant recipients without cancer. Median hospital length of stay was 14 days for patients transplanted for stage IV lung cancer and 16 days for transplant recipients without cancer.

During follow-up, four of the 17 transplant recipients saw their cancer return and they were treated with local and systemic therapies (ex: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, etc.) By the end of the study in January 2026, two of the 17 transplant recipients had died.

The authors emphasize that longer follow-up is needed to define the durability of disease control, the risk of late recurrence and long-term quality of life after transplant.

“This is not a claim that transplant restores normal life expectancy, and it’s not a blanket indication for stage IV lung cancer. It’s evidence that a carefully selected group of patients facing otherwise poor near-term survival may have an opportunity for meaningful additional life – that’s why this work matters,” said Dr. Bharat.

About the DREAM Program

To date, Northwestern Medicine surgeons have performed more than 50 lung transplants for patients with advanced lung cancers.

Since Northwestern Medicine’s Lung Transplant Program first started in 2014, they’ve performed more than 700 lung transplant procedures for patients with end-stage lung diseases such as COVID, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and more. Northwestern Medicine has one of the shortest wait times for a lung transplant in the U.S. with a median wait time of three days.

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the 24-hour referral line at 312.695.5864 or 844.639.5864. For more information about the Lung Transplant Program or lung cancer screenings, visit nm.org. 

PATIENTS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS

David Peterson – Washington, DC

David Peterson is a freelance photographer who lives in Washington, DC. In early 2019, he developed a cough that wouldn’t go away, and after going to a local clinic, they discovered a dark spot on his lung. Peterson was diagnosed with lung cancer at a health system in Washington and started immunotherapy treatment, followed by surgery to remove a softball-sized tumor believed to have been developing on his left lung for more than a decade.

For nearly a year, Peterson’s recovery appeared promising, but a follow-up CT scan revealed his cancer had returned. Despite aggressive chemotherapy and multiple clinical trials, the disease continued to progress, and Peterson was running out of time.

In 2023, he discovered an online story about the DREAM Program at Northwestern Medicine, reached out to the lung transplant team and was fast-tracked for evaluation. Just weeks after being listed, and shortly after relocating to Chicago with the support of his wife and kids, Peterson received the call. On September 24, 2023, at the age of 57, Peterson underwent a double-lung transplant.

Now 60, he remains cancer-free and has had no signs of organ rejection. While managing a daily regimen of medications and ongoing physical rehabilitation, he’s embracing life again – reconnecting with his work as a freelance photographer, participating in lung transplant support groups and spending time with his family. His cancer, driven by a KRAS G12D gene mutation and unrelated to smoking, makes his case particularly noteworthy and he’s hopeful his story can raise awareness about emerging transplant options for patients with advanced lung cancer.

“When I first heard, ‘lung transplant,’ I thought it was too extreme to even consider, but it became my second chance at life. Today, I’m cancer-free, back with my family in DC, and picking up my camera again,” said Peterson. “I don’t take a single day for granted. This experience has taught me that even when options feel exhausted, there can still be hope – sometimes in places you never expected.”

Laura Rotunno – Deerfield, Illinois 

For Laura Rotunno of Deerfield, Illinois, a lung transplant was a second chance at life after being diagnosed with lung cancer four years ago. Initially, the cancer started on her left lung, but after two years of chemotherapy, the cancer spread to her right lung. Facing limited treatment options, Rotunno’s physician recommended she reach out to Northwestern Medicine to be considered for the DREAM Program.  

After an extensive transplant evaluation, and being hospitalized with pneumonia, Rotunno was placed on the lung transplant waiting list on May 20, 2025. Ten days later, at the age of 63, Rotunno underwent a successful double-lung transplant at Northwestern Memorial Hospital on May 30, 2025. Coincidentally, Rotunno’s transplant fell on the 11^th birthday of her beloved German Shepherd, Koda.

Married to her husband, Richard, for 35 years and together for 45, Rotunno cherishes time with her family, including their 29-year-old daughter, Jenna. As she approaches her 65^th birthday on July 31, Rotunno is back to working as a receptionist at a local health care system, and she reflects often on the anonymous donor who made her transplant possible.   

“When I got the call that donor lungs were available, everything changed,” said Rotunno. “Just a few months earlier, I was in the hospital on oxygen, wondering what the future would hold. Now I wake up every day thankful for the simple things – a walk with my dog, time with my husband and daughter, and the chance to celebrate another birthday. My transplant is proof that one incredible act of generosity can change someone else’s life forever.”

Jodi Graf – Houston, Texas 

For nearly three decades, Jodi Graf, a NASA engineer and mother of two, lived her life one breath at a time. In 1997, she began experiencing unexplained shortness of breath. Doctors in Houston, Texas, initially diagnosed her with asthma, prescribing an inhaler. But instead of improving, her condition worsened.

In 2005, after a bout of pneumonia, doctors identified a more serious condition – interstitial lung disease (ILD), which causes scarring of the lungs, making it difficult to breathe. For 10 to 15 years, Graf remained relatively stable until her health began to rapidly decline and she came to rely on supplemental oxygen.

In December 2023, Graf entered a formal lung transplant evaluation with doctors in Houston, but during the testing, they discovered a mass in her lungs. Despite not having a history of smoking, Graf was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. At most transplant centers around the world, patients with active cancer are no longer eligible for lung transplants. Instead of being listed for a transplant in Houston, Graf underwent radiation treatment while her lung function dropped to 30 percent.

“Basic activities required constant supplemental oxygen – sometimes as much as 10 liters. Just walking from my car to my office at NASA was a feat,” said Graf. “I would Google ‘lung transplant’ constantly, searching for hope. That online search led me to news stories in Chicago about the DREAM Program and when I called Northwestern Medicine, I found my people.”

Last November, Graf arrived at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where she underwent a transplant evaluation and was listed for a double-lung transplant. Less than 24 hours after being placed on the wait list for new lungs, Graf received the call that a match was found, and her surgery took place on Thanksgiving Day – November 27, 2025.

After surgery, Graf walked on a treadmill – without oxygen – for the first time in years. She will reside in Chicago for one-year post transplant, and soon hopes to hike in Yellowstone, explore the Canadian Rockies, and travel with her husband, John, and their two sons, ages 22 and 26, without oxygen tanks for the first time in decades.

Tannaz Ameli – Minneapolis, Minnesota 

Tannaz Ameli, a retired nurse living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, built a life in the United States after immigrating from Iran in 1980.

In September 2021, Ameli developed a persistent cough that steadily worsened. Initial testing, including a chest X-ray, led doctors to diagnose her with pneumonia. However, as her symptoms changed from a dry cough to a productive one, further imaging still pointed to pneumonia.

By January 2022, with no improvement, Ameli sought care at a large health system in Minnesota where she received a life-changing diagnosis: stage IV lung cancer. She started chemotherapy, but it quickly became clear that standard treatment would not be sufficient and Ameli was running out of time. After learning about Northwestern Medicine’s lung transplant program through media coverage, her husband, Medhi, arranged for a second opinion.

During a consultation with Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery, Ameli learned she was a strong candidate for a lung transplant because her cancer remained confined to the lungs and had not spread to the lymph nodes.

Ameli traveled to Chicago and was admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital on July 3, 2022, where she was listed for a double-lung transplant. Just 10 days later on July 13, a donor was identified and Ameli, then 64, underwent a successful double-lung transplant. Four years later at the age of 68, Ameli remains cancer-free.

“As a nurse, I spent my life caring for others, and I never imagined I’d be the one relying on such extraordinary care,” said Ameli. “When I came to Northwestern Medicine, the first thing Dr. Bharat told me was, ‘I think we can make you cancer-free,’ and he delivered on those words. If you or a loved one has lung cancer, Northwestern Medicine is the place to be. These days, I’m enjoying traveling, spending time with friends and family and living proof that there is hope even in the most difficult moments.”

Over the past two years, Northwestern Medicine has played a key role in supporting Vizlitics’ AI-powered solutions by contributing oncology expertise, real-world clinical insights, and a pilot environment. Vizlitics led the design and development of the products, translating clinical needs into scalable tools that integrate into existing clinical and research workflows.

As a result of the collaboration and support from National Institute of Health (NIH) SBIR Phase II contract, Northwestern Medicine has activated Vizlitics’ Clinical Trial and Real World Data products, marking a key milestone in efforts to improve trial matching, streamline research operations, and expand access to clinical trials for patients with cancer.

“Clinical trial participation remains one of the most challenging areas in oncology, driven in large part by fragmented data systems and manual workflows,” said Deva Mahalingam, MD, PhD, Associate Director of Clinical Research, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine. “Through our collaboration with Vizlitics, we were able to apply real-world oncology expertise directly into product development and deployment within a live clinical environment. Implementing this technology enables earlier identification of eligible patients, reduces operational burden on research teams, expands access to clinical trials, and helps generate research-grade structured clinical data at scale.”

Vizlitics’ platform uses artificial intelligence to curate longitudinal patient data, extract structured clinical information from unstructured records including faxes and media files, and automatically pre-screen patients for clinical trial eligibility. The tools are designed to support clinical research teams while fitting seamlessly into existing health system workflows by screening >95% of the patients prior to their upcoming consultation. Structured patient data extracted for pre-screening and research spans patients screening, diagnosis, treatments, comorbidities and outcomes across complete patient’s care journey.

"Our collaboration with Northwestern Medicine shows how health systems and Digital Health AI companies can co-create solutions faster together, using a confluence of clinical data, workflow automation, and responsible AI to address the challenges that clinicians and researchers face every day," said Tarun Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Vizlitics. "Northwestern Medicine's oncology expertise, clinician feedback, and rigorous pilot environment helped us build two clinically validated solutions with measurable impact - accelerating patient-to-trial matching, reducing manual screening burden, and turning unstructured clinical records into structured, research-ready insights at scale. We're excited to see both products activated and to keep working together to make clinical trials more accessible and research operations more efficient."

Northwestern Medicine and Vizlitics plan to continue collaborating as the technology is deployed at scale, with a shared focus on improving cancer research efficiency, clinician experience, and patient access to cutting-edge therapies.

Chicago, IL – June 4, 2026 – Just three days before a volleyball match at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the team’s captain, Kendall Schara, found out she had cancer.  

“I spoke to a lot of my teammates that night,” said Schara. “I spoke to one in particular and told her, ‘I’m just so glad we got to play together for one last day.’” 

In April 2025, the then 21-year-old from Crown Point, Ind., had her wisdom teeth removed. What was supposed to be a standard procedure developed into an infection at one of the surgical sites, the flu, and a rash of sudden health issues. A bone marrow biopsy would then reveal the cause of her symptoms -- Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  

“I'll never forget the moment I was told I had cancer and having to ask the question, ‘what is my survival rate?’” said Schara. “I've been a relatively healthy person my whole life. I never had any problems until I had my wisdom teeth removed.” 

An intensive treatment plan 

Twenty-four hours after being diagnosed in Green Bay, Schara arrived at the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago to begin treatment close to home. 

Schara began a 24-hour chemotherapy drip and spent the next month at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. After completing chemo, she began preparing for a stem cell transplant to replace her diseased blood cells with healthy ones.  

In the United States, 70% of patients do not have a relative who is a match and must look outside the family for a donor. Schara’s younger sisters, Marley Schara (20), and Elle Schara (18), both got tested. While Marley wasn’t eligible, Elle was a perfect match.  

“Getting good news throughout all of this is something that keeps me on the positive side,” said Kendall. “Hearing that my sister was a perfect 12 out of 12 match, I was in shock. I didn’t think my sisters would be a match, let alone a perfect match.” 

On July 29, 2025, Kendall underwent a successful stem cell transplant using Elle’s donor cells. Kehinde Akekola, MD, a hematology and medical oncology specialist at Lurie Cancer Center, says Kendall’s athleticism and positive attitude worked to her advantage.

“Kendall works hard and is incredibly strong both mentally and physically,” said Dr. Adekola. “Both her young age and the absence of other medical conditions played a big role in how quickly she recovered.”

Before her transplant, Kendall underwent fertility preservation with Kara Goldman, MD, medical director of fertility preservation at Northwestern Medicine, in the hopes of one day starting a family.

“Fertility preservation is a critical part of comprehensive cancer care,” said Dr. Goldman.  “Infertility remains one of the most common complications of cancer treatment and all patients should have access to fertility preservation and the chance to build a family.”

Back on the court

Nearly one year after the transplant, Kendall is in remission. She returned to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in January 2026 and began practicing with her teammates.

“This semester had challenging moments, but watching the progress over the past few months makes it all worth it,” said Kendall. “I have grown so much mentally and physically, and I’m lucky to have my teammates right beside me.”

Meanwhile, Elle followed in her sister’s footsteps and began playing volleyball at Purdue University in Indiana. Through treatment and in sport, the girls are each other’s biggest fans.

“Not many people have gone through what Elle and I endured this past year,” said Kendall. I’m so grateful to call her my sister, my donor, and my best friend.”

Kendall’s volleyball season will begin in August, giving her a few more months of collegiate play before she graduates in December.

About Acute Myeloid Leukemia 

About 22,000 adults are diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) in the United States each year. This type of cancer causes bone marrow to produce abnormal blood cells, and if not treated, can quickly spread throughout the body. The average age for a diagnosis is 69 years old.  

At Lurie Cancer Center, a multidisciplinary team specializes in the research and treatment of AML and other types of cancer.  

For more information on cancer research and treatment, visit nm.org.

WINFIELD, IL — April 30, 2026 — Northwestern Medicine is expanding access to highly specialized digestive health services with the opening of the new Center for Advanced Endoscopy at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, IL. Supported by a $15 million investment, the center offers some of the most advanced gastrointestinal (GI) procedures available in the United States, bringing world-class endoscopic care to patients across the Chicago region and beyond.

The Center for Advanced Endoscopy marks a key milestone in Northwestern Medicine’s broader effort to bring advanced, academically driven care closer to home for patients across the health system’s 11 hospitals.

“Combining the convenience of community‑based care with the expertise of a major academic medical center, this opening is a significant leap forward in our commitment to deliver complex care directly to the communities we serve,” said Ken Hedley, president of Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital. “Local patients now have access to the most advanced endoscopic procedures right here in the western suburbs, without the added burden of traveling far from home.”

With an emphasis on innovation and cutting-edge research, the Center for Advanced Endoscopy is anchored by physicians who are leaders in their field, prominent researchers, and pioneers of endoscopic techniques used worldwide. As one of only a few stand-alone advanced endoscopy sites in the U.S., the center is expected to draw patients not only from the Chicago-area, but also individuals from around the globe seeking treatment for the most complex gastrointestinal conditions. 

“These physicians are some of the most recognized and respected interventional endoscopists in the world,” said Hedley. “They’re changing how and where this level of care is delivered and putting Central DuPage Hospital on the map as a leader for complex GI care, research and innovation.”

A Global Destination for Advanced Endoscopy

Led by Amrita Sethi, MD, an internationally renowned endoscopist and the center’s new medical director, the Center for Advanced Endoscopy features minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic options for complex GI, pancreatic, biliary, metabolic and early‑stage cancer conditions. Patients will benefit from clinical expertise and technologies that offer faster diagnosis, improved outcomes, reduced recovery times and often eliminate the need for surgery.

“Our vision is to make Central DuPage Hospital a destination for advanced GI care, not just for this region, but nationally and globally,” said Dr. Sethi, who is also medical director of innovation and training for the Northwestern Medicine Digestive Health Institute. “We are bringing innovative therapies, minimally invasive diagnostics, clinical research, medical training and comprehensive patient support together under one roof.”

Spanning 20,000 square feet, the center features next‑generation technologies, including advanced imaging, flexible robotics, AI-enabled diagnostics and a planned hybrid OR with GI and interventional radiology (IR) capabilities. Patients will have consultations, diagnostics, treatments, and follow-up care all in the same location from a comprehensive team that includes physicians, nurses, technicians, advanced practice providers, nurse navigators and fellows. The center offers comprehensive diagnostic and therapeutic services for a wide range of gastrointestinal conditions, including:

• Complex pancreaticobiliary endoscopy
• Interventional endoscopic ultrasound
• Endoscopic antireflux therapies
• Endobariatric and metabolic endoscopy
• Endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR), endoscopic submucosal dissection (EMD) and third‑space endoscopy (all POEMs)
• Endoscopic therapy for Barrett’s esophagus and early esophageal cancer
• Advanced tissue resection and closure techniques
• Hybrid GI/IR/OR–supported proceduresStreamlined inpatient transfers for advanced therapeutic intervention

Bringing Advanced Care Closer to Home

The Center for Advanced Endoscopy builds upon Northwestern Medicine’s continued investment in digestive health. In 2023, the Digestive Health Institute launched a liver transplant service at Central DuPage Hospital, improving local access to advanced liver care and helping the health system achieve record transplant volumes.

“This investment underscores Northwestern Medicine’s commitment to bringing leading-edge, academically driven digestive care to more patients,” said Sri Komanduri, MD, globally recognized interventional endoscopist at the Center for Advanced Endoscopy and director of system integration for digestive health at Northwestern Medicine. “By combining top-tier talent, advanced technology, and a focus on innovation, Northwestern Medicine is setting the new standard for what GI care can look like in a community setting.” 

With both patient and referring physician experience prioritized, the new center is designed to reduce the need to travel long distances to access complex procedures that diagnose early cancers, remove tumors endoscopically, and treat conditions such as GERD, obesity, and pancreatic and biliary disorders. From the first phone call through recovery and follow‑up, dedicated nurse navigators guide patients through every step of their care journey, coordinating scheduling, providing timely updates, and communicating closely with referring physicians. The center also features direct physician‑to‑physician consultation pathways, enabling prompt review of imaging and pathology and ensuring seamless coordination so referring providers remain closely connected to their patients’ care.

“Patients should not have to choose between convenience and expertise and referring physicians should not have to sacrifice communication or continuity of care,” said Faisal Khan, MD, interventional gastroenterologist at the Center for Advanced Endoscopy. “At this center, patients receive academic‑level care close with rapid access when urgent issues arise, while referring providers benefit from direct collaboration and timely clinical updates. Our goal is to serve as an extension of the referring physician’s care team and deliver the highest level of care to their patients without the added burden and stress of traveling far from home.”

Innovation, Research and Training

In addition to state-of-the-art clinical care, the Center for Advanced Endoscopy also aims to advance the science of digestive health through clinical research and professional training. The facility will host national and international training programs, support clinical trials, and foster development of new techniques and technologies.

“Active research is essential to bringing the latest advances directly to our patients,” said Dr. Sethi. “By participating in and generating new science, our patients benefit from what’s available now and what’s coming next.”

Enhancing GI Care Across Northwestern Medicine

The decision to build the center at Central DuPage Hospital reflects both community need and the hospital’s strong foundation of multidisciplinary care. While located in the western suburbs, the center’s leaders say the opening strengthens Northwestern Medicine’s Digestive Health Institute by making the highest level of GI care available to more patients.

“The western suburbs need this level of care and Central DuPage Hospital is well-equipped to offer it thanks to the robust surgical, oncology, radiology and pathology support required to treat complex cases,” said Dr. Komanduri. “The center enhances access to advanced endoscopy for patients across our health system, including those in the International Health program. It ensures that no matter how they receive care through Northwestern Medicine, patients have streamlined access to the most advanced endoscopic treatments available.”

For more information about the Center for Advanced Endoscopy at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital, visit www.nm.org/cae. To make an appointment, call 630-933-4448.

About the Digestive Health Institute at Northwestern Medicine 

The Digestive Health Institute at Northwestern Medicine provides comprehensive, specialized care for a full range of gastrointestinal conditions including advanced diagnostics, innovative treatments, and access to leading research and clinical trials. With multiple convenient locations, Northwestern Medicine delivers high‑quality digestive care close to home. The program is ranked among the top gastroenterology and GI surgery specialty centers in the country 2025–2026 U.S. News & World Report.

ORLAND PARK, Ill. — October 31, 2025 —Northwestern Medicine Living Well Cancer Resources is proud to announce its expansion to the Northwestern Medicine St. George Cancer Institute in Orland Park, increasing access to supportive care services for individuals affected by cancer.

For more than 20 years, Living Well has been a beacon of hope, resilience, and community for tens of thousands of survivors, caregivers, and families. Over the past two decades, Living Well has grown from a small grassroots initiative to a nationally recognized endeavor, with locations in Geneva and Warrenville and the new satellite location in Orland Park.

Living Well offers a wide range of services including counseling and social work services; support groups; fitness, yoga, art and nutrition classes; medical presentations and a wig boutique. All programs are offered at no cost to those diagnosed with cancer and their families.

“The directors of the St. George Foundation have long realized the critical importance of supporting southwestern Chicago and the surrounding regional communities with advanced, academic level cancer care,” said Terrence Moisan, MD, president of the St. George Foundation. “This resource advances the entire spectrum of care from prevention through diagnosis, treatment and long-term support.”

“Cancer care isn’t just about medicine—it’s about healing the whole person. At the Northwestern Medicine St. George Cancer Institute, we’ve created a space where patients can find strength through movement, expression through art, and connection through community,” said Timothy Kuzel, MD, medical director for oncology at Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital. “These supportive services are more than amenities. They’re lifelines that help people rediscover joy and resilience during one of the hardest journeys of their lives.”

Making an Impact

Amber Commodore turned to Living Well Cancer Resources after her breast cancer diagnosis in December 2024. The assistant principal who lives in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood started attending some of the virtual breast cancer support meetings to help her navigate her unexpected diagnosis.

“Talking with others who are on the same path has helped me process all the new information and emotions I’m experiencing,” Commodore said.

Living on the south side of Chicago, Commodore chose to undergo her treatments at the St. George Cancer Institute in Orland Park because she says it is a convenient location with ample parking and incredible staff.

“I’m so excited that Living Well Cancer Resources is expanding its programming so I can attend some of the other offerings when I begin my radiation treatments in November,” Commodore said.

DeShunn Bray is also eager to experience more of Living Well’s programming in Orland Park. Bray was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2025. During her weekly chemotherapy infusions, Bray took advantage of hand massage services.

“Those sessions were just everything,” Bray said. “They really helped with my neuropathy and there is nothing like the comfort the human touch provides during a challenging time.”

Bray also attended a Beautiful You Workshop, which included tips for those experiencing hair loss.

“I felt comfort being in a room with other women who looked like me, even if we are in different stages of our journeys,” Bray said.

Expanded Offerings in Orland Park

Services available at the Northwestern Medicine St. George Cancer Institute include:

• ·      Designated Wig Boutique — Living Well offers individual consultations to choose a wig, which is available at no cost to patients diagnosed with cancer. Since May 2025, 60 wigs have been distributed at the St. George Cancer Institute.

• ·      Exercise Consultations — Offered the second Friday of each month, Living Well’s Wellness Coordinator works with patients to develop a personalized exercise plan for cancer survivors during and after treatment.

• ·      Fitness Classes, including several of Living Well’s most popular and sought-after fitness classes — Tai Chi: Meditation in Motion and Chair Yoga. Chair Fitness for Lymphedema and Neuropathy classes will begin in January 2026, with additional sessions planned for summer 2026

• ·      Chairside Visits — Popular with patients undergoing treatment, trained professionals offer hand massages or a small art project in the infusion area

• ·      Art Therapy Classes — Available on a pop-up basis, will expand to monthly offerings in 2026

• ·      Beautiful You Workshops — For anyone experiencing hair loss from cancer treatment, patients will learn care techniques for scalp & hair regrowth, makeup lessons and how to accessorize with scarves and hats.

• ·      A respite area featuring an art table with puzzles and coloring pages for stress relief

About the Northwestern Medicine St. George Cancer Institute

Anchored by Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Northwestern Medicine St. George Cancer Institute provides patients and their families advanced care at all cancer stages, from early diagnosis through treatment and aftercare.

From diagnostic imaging to treatment and survivorship, patients can access leading-edge cancer care without traveling to Chicago, including:

• ·      Supportive Oncology service provided by Northwestern Medicine Living Well Cancer Resources

• ·      State-of-the-art infusion center, featuring private chemotherapy rooms

• ·      An on-site infusion pharmacy and lab

• ·      Radiation Oncology on site with access to proton therapy at Warrenville location

• ·      PET/CT/MRI imaging on site

About Northwestern Medicine Living Well Cancer Resources

Northwestern Medicine Living Well Cancer Resources is celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. Founded on September 1, 2005, Living Well offers dozens of programs to help patients and caregivers navigate a cancer diagnosis.

With a goal of ensuring no one faces cancer alone, Living Well Cancer Resources has touched countless lives with compassion and care.

“In the cancer clinic, there often isn’t time to address all the holistic needs of cancer patients. Living Well more than fills that gap, providing patients and families with practical tools that improve well-being,” said Christopher George, MD, medical director of oncology.  

For more information about Living Well Cancer Resources, including the current program guide, visit nm.org.

CHICAGO – September 23, 2025 – For the first time at Northwestern Medicine, doctors have successfully treated a patient with uveal melanoma — a rare form of eye cancer — using Hepzato Kit, an FDA-approved therapy that delivers chemotherapy directly to the liver. The treatment option could help patients with stage 4 uveal melanoma live longer by shrinking tumors that have spread to the liver and can not be removed surgically.

“This type of therapy has been shown to prolong survival for patients while also offering a very tolerable side effect profile, which are two things we want to prioritize,” said Sunandana Chandra, MD, medical director for melanoma and cutaneous oncology with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “It’s especially meaningful to have a therapy that helps us maintain a good quality of life for patients as we navigate a cancer that can be quite challenging to treat.”

On April 3, 66-year-old Bozena Wojtach of Niles, Ill., became the first patient at Northwestern Medicine to receive the new treatment. During the procedure, interventional radiologists use several small tubes to isolate the liver’s blood supply from the rest of the body before chemotherapy is directly administered to the liver for about 30 minutes. Once the chemotherapy is finished, the separated blood supply in the liver is filtered for an additional half hour before being returned to the patient’s body.

“This process removes more than 80% of the chemotherapy drug, significantly reducing the amount of chemotherapy that reaches other parts of the body,” said Robert Lewandowski, MD, director of interventional oncology at the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine. “While systemic chemotherapy targets widespread disease, this therapy is more effective for patients with the majority of their disease localized to the liver, as it minimizes overall toxicity.”

Originally from Cracow, Poland, Wojtach spent her youth flying planes and skydiving before pursuing a career in nursing. After immigrating to the United States in 1986 with her husband, Wojtach gave birth to twin sons and continued working as a nurse in the Chicago area, caring for cardiology, oncology and pediatric patients until her retirement in 2022.

In 2024, Wojtach began noticing flashing lights in her vision, which prompted a visit to her local optometrist. There, she learned that a mass had developed in her right eye and was referred to Northwestern Medicine ophthalmologist Randy Christopher Bowen, MD, who diagnosed her with uveal melanoma. While proton therapy was successful at treating her eye tumor, scans later revealed the cancer had spread to her liver, which is the most common site of spread for patients with uveal melanoma. If left untreated, liver tumors can continue to grow and may lead to liver failure.

Fortunately, the tumors affected less than half of her liver, making Wojtach a candidate for Hepzato Kit. If needed, patients may receive up to six cycles of the therapy, with treatment administered every six to eight weeks. However, after just two cycles, Wojtach’s tumors were reduced by more than 50 percent.

“I feel energetic and free of the pain and nausea that I saw in many patients receiving standard chemotherapy during my time as an oncology nurse,” said Wojtach. “I feel like I’m healthy – like I have no cancer at all.”

Due to her positive response, Wojtach’s medical team recommends she completes at least four cycles of the treatment. In the future, she hopes to continue traveling, working in her garden and spending time with her husband and adult sons.

“It has taken a big commitment from the health system and a significant team effort to bring this new therapy to patients,” said Dr. Lewandowski. “With collaboration from interventional radiology, medical oncology, anesthesia, perfusion, and many others, we are excited to provide new hope for patients who otherwise have limited options.”

Uveal melanoma is rare, accounting for about 5% of all melanoma cases in the U.S. Up to half of all patients with the eye cancer will develop metastatic disease, which can be life-threatening.

To learn more about Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org.  

Chicago, IL – September 17, 2025 – At the age of 14, during the height of the COVID pandemic, Liliana “Lili” Castaneda thought she had her first menstrual cycle. At first, she was actually excited about it, but then, the monthly bleeding turned into daily bleeding. Castaneda was bleeding so much that she would soak through menstrual pads in 15 minutes and would get dizzy when standing up.

Castaneda went to a local doctor, who told her it was just stress due to the pandemic. But Castaneda insisted that something was wrong, and one month before her 15^th birthday, she was diagnosed with a rare vaginal cancer called clear cell carcinoma. When viewed under a microscope, the cancer cells look clear. It’s typically found in the female reproductive system in postmenopausal women. 

“In my 15 years of practicing medicine, Liliana is the youngest patient I’ve treated for clear cell carcinoma – most of my patients are in their 60s,” said Dario Roque, MD, a gynecologic oncologist at the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine.

Since clear cell carcinoma of the vagina isn’t a childhood cancer, pediatric hospitals in Chicago wouldn’t accept Castaneda as a patient. On top of that, her mom only speaks Spanish, so it was important to have a physician who could communicate with Castaneda’s mom during appointments. 

Northwestern Medicine was ready and willing to take on her case. Dr. Roque, who is from Cuba and speaks Spanish, was easily able to communicate with Castaneda’s mom during the course of treatment which included chemotherapy and radiation.

Jonathan Strauss, MD, was Castaneda’s radiation oncologist at the Lurie Cancer Center, and oversaw both external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy, a specific type of internal radiation therapy where a radioactive implant is put inside the body to deliver radiation directly to the tumor. 

“Liliana’s tumor was about the size of a golf ball,” said Dr. Strauss. “At the time of her diagnosis, the tumor was too large for us to surgically remove it, so we had to use external and internal radiation therapies to help shrink it. It took a lot of radiation to get rid of her tumor, along with chemotherapy.”

Certain cancer treatments, like chemotherapy and radiation, can negatively impact a patient’s ability to have children, which is why fertility preservation prior to the start of treatment is essential for many patients. But, since Castaneda was born with Turner Syndrome, a genetic condition that affects females and causes infertility, preserving her fertility was not an option or a choice the family had to make. Castaneda’s doctors also don’t believe her Turner Syndrome diagnosis had anything to do with her cancer diagnosis. 

 Thanks to the chemotherapy and radiation, Castaneda had tremendous results and was officially declared cancer-free in March 2021. Inspired by her Northwestern Medicine medical team, Castaneda, who is now 19 years old, is going to college and taking nursing classes.

“I can’t wait to become a nurse and help other kids navigate their medical journey,” she said.  

“We knew Liliana was going to do great things no matter what, but when she told us she wanted to go to nursing school, the entire Northwestern Medicine team that took care of her was very touched,” said Dr. Strauss.

Castaneda and her doctors also want women to know that they should contact their physician if they’re experiencing abnormal bleeding, bleeding between periods or after menopause, along with pain or urinary symptoms. Those are the first signs of clear cell carcinoma of the vagina.

“If you feel like something is wrong, don’t hesitate and get it checked out,” said Castaneda.

For more information on gynecologic cancer care at Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org.

CHICAGO – September 16, 2025 – Northwestern Medicine is the first health system in Illinois to adopt the da Vinci SP (Single Port) surgical system for thoracic surgery, marking a significant advancement in minimally invasive care for patients with lung and chest conditions. The new robotic platform enables thoracic surgeons to perform complex procedures through one small incision in the upper abdomen versus multiple incisions in the chest, allowing for improved outcomes and faster recovery times for patients undergoing thoracic surgeries involving tumors in the chest and lungs. 

“This robot is different from ones we’ve used in the past because it allows us to perform minimally invasive operations using one single port with a small incision, opposed to previously using several different ports at the same time with multiple incisions,” said Samuel Kim, MD, a thoracic surgeon and director of Robotic Thoracic Surgery at the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute. 

Traditionally, thoracic surgeons would perform these types of minimally invasive procedures by going in through the chest wall which has a lot of nerves and is associated with more pain. With the new da Vinci SP surgical system, Dr. Kim is able to make a single two-to-three-inch incision in the abdomen area, which causes less pain. The robot was designed to improve recovery and help patients return to their normal activities sooner. 

“For patients who have received this new type of procedure, their recovery has been much faster and less painful, allowing them to get home and get back to work easier. It’s especially a great option for elderly and more frail patients because it decreases their risk of falling post-surgery since they have a reduced need for opioid pain medications,” said Dr. Kim. 

For 74-year-old Rodolfo (who chose to keep his last name private), undergoing surgery with a new robot was a bit exciting, since he spent the majority of his career as a computer engineer, working with robots and fixing computers and electronics. After doctors discovered a rare, slow-growing tumor in his thymus gland called thymoma, Rodolfo was deemed a perfect candidate to undergo surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital with the new da Vinci SP surgical system.

“I’m very supportive of medical advancements – especially when they involve a robot – so when Dr. Kim told me the new robotic platform would help me recover more quickly with less pain, I was all for it,” said Rodolfo, who underwent his procedure in mid-August.

“Rodolfo’s surgery went extremely well and after removing the tumor, we determined it was non-cancerous. He could have went home the same day but preferred to stay one night in the hospital for monitoring,” said Dr. Kim. “Two weeks post-surgery, I saw Rodolfo in clinic, and he didn’t have any pain. He’s back to living a normal life, enjoying retirement.”

The da Vinci Single Port (SP) surgical system by Intuitive was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for thoracic and chest cases. The system features a high-definition 3D camera, which allows surgeons to sit behind a console, visualize the surgical site and operate the robot with greater range of motion than the human hand. It can be used for procedures such as thymectomy, lobectomy and other chest surgeries.

 For more information on leading-edge lung and chest care from the Canning Thoracic Institute, visit nm.org.  

GENEVA, Ill. — September 2, 2025 — Northwestern Medicine Living Well Cancer Resources, a center dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for individuals affected by cancer, proudly marks its 20^th anniversary in September.

Since its founding in 2005, Living Well has been a beacon of hope, resilience, and community for tens of thousands of survivors, caregivers, and families. Over the past two decades, Living Well has grown from a small grassroots initiative to a nationally recognized endeavor, with two locations in Geneva and Warrenville, and a satellite location in Orland Park, opening this fall.

Living Well offers a wide range of services including counseling and social work services; support groups; fitness, yoga, art and nutrition classes; medical presentations and a wig boutique. All programs are offered at no cost to those diagnosed and their families.

“This milestone is a testament to the strength of our community and the unwavering commitment of our volunteers, staff, and supporters,” said Candy Domke-Hochberg, operations administrator, Northwestern Medicine Living Well Cancer Resources. “We are honored to have walked alongside so many individuals on their cancer journeys and remain dedicated to providing hope and healing for years to come.”

“Support from Living Well has been enormously helpful to my patients,” said Christopher George, MD, medical director of oncology. “In the cancer clinic, there often isn’t time to address all the holistic needs of cancer patients. Living Well more than fills that gap, providing patients and families with practical tools that improve well-being.”

Inspiring those with cancer to live well

When Living Well first opened on September 1, 2005, its mission was to instill people living with cancer with knowledge, optimism and the inspiration to live well.

That mission statement came directly from the experiences of the Living Well founders, Fred Dornbach, Joanne Hansen, Susan Lyons and Terry Murphy.

Joanne Hansen was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1984, at the age of 44. Drawing from her own experience, she recognized the need to pull support services for cancer patients and their families under one roof.

“You can’t go through a cancer journey alone. Often your spouse and loved ones don’t understand and, truthfully, your spouse and your family need support as well, which is why creating Living Well was so important to me,” Hansen said.

Terry Murphy, another co-founder, believed in the project after witnessing his wife, Rosemary “Posey” Murphy, live with breast cancer for 12 years before passing away in 2003.

He watched Posey work to find resources to help manage the side effects of chemotherapy through diet and nutrition, exercise classes to help improve stamina, counseling services for Terry and their children, and rehabilitation therapy services to help her move when her body began to fail.

“Our aspirations were to be able to make these services available in the Fox Valley area. That's what our original charter said,” Murphy said. “The fact that we're able to look at all of Northern Illinois and say that our footprint encompasses all of that, that exceeds my wildest dreams.”

“After 20 years, the enthusiasm for Living Well is still so great. So many people believe in the mission. I often say it is more than I dreamed of and all that I hoped for,” Hansen said.

Living Well expands its reach

The mission continued when Living Well programs became part of Northwestern Medicine in 2012. With a goal of ensuring no one faces cancer alone, Living Well Cancer Resources has touched countless lives with compassion and care. 

Through virtual and in-person offerings, Living Well has supported people living in 287 counties across the United States and in countries around the world.

Celebrating 20 years of Living Well

To commemorate the 20^th anniversary of Living Well, a celebration will be held at the Northwestern Medicine Walk & 5k on October 11, 2025. The event is an opportunity to celebrate cancer survivors with a 5k run and 1-mile walk, followed by a family-friends festival.

Net proceeds from the event will go toward the educational and clinical support programs and services provided by Northwestern Medicine Living Well Cancer Resources. Registration information can be found here.

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CHICAGO, IL – September 2, 2025 – Jessica Lopez doesn’t remember being able to see. The 32-year-old from Chicago, Ill., spent most of her childhood in a hospital, battling leukemia and retinoblastoma that would leave her completely blind. Although years of chemotherapy would help treat the cancers, it would lead to other health problems later in life.  

In November 2023, Lopez was engaged to be married when she found out she needed a new heart and a new liver. She was in heart failure from cardiomyopathy, a type of heart disease affecting the heart muscle, and the impact had spread to her liver. Lopez was listed for a double-organ transplant at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and spent one year on the waiting list. During that time, her condition began affecting a third organ. Lopez no longer needed just a heart and liver – she also needed a new kidney.  

Despite being considered high-risk for the procedure, Lopez says she was never scared. 

“I’ve always been a very positive person, and I don’t like to ever think negatively,” said Lopez. “I was confident from the very beginning that my doctors at Northwestern Medicine were going to do this successfully.”

Finding the right match

Triple-organ transplants are incredibly rare, with only 59 transplants of the heart, liver, and kidney recorded in the U.S. to date. Specialized teams with the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute (BCVI) and the Northwestern Medicine Organ Transplant Center had performed a successful triple transplant in the past and were ready to take on Lopez’s case.  

“From the day I met her in clinic, I knew we were going to pull out all the stops to do what we needed to do to get her feeling better,” said Benjamin Bryner, MD, a cardiac surgeon at Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. “She has an attitude that’s really positive, she’s endearing, and has a great sense of humor. Just walking out of the clinic room, I thought, ‘this is going to be tricky, but we absolutely have to do this.’”

Wait times for triple-organ transplants are often longer than those for single-organ transplants since all three organs must come from the same donor. This can complicate the organ approval process, as sometimes two out of three organs may match but not the third. 

“When you have multiple failing organs, along with a patient who is young and has heart damage due to chemotherapy as opposed to the usual heart disease, it gets a lot more complicated,” said Dr. Bryner. “It’s unusual to find a recipient who can safely get through this complex of an operation.”

On February 24, three organs became available, and Lopez went in for her transplant. Lopez’s heart and liver were transplanted together before a different group of surgeons could move on to the kidney. 

“We transplanted the heart and liver in one block to limit the amount of time the organs go without blood or oxygen,” said Juan Carlos Caicedo, MD, transplant surgeon and surgical director of the Liver Transplant Program at Northwestern Medicine. “The heart and the liver stay connected the whole time from the donor to the recipient. While Dr. Bryner was doing the heart transplant, we were sewing the liver graft. You have two surgeons working simultaneously and that’s one of the advantages of our team.” 

Looking to the future

Lopez is now thriving with her new heart, liver, and kidney, and has been in remission from cancer for 20 years. 

“I feel like I was reborn again,” said Lopez. “I have more energy, my heart beats much stronger and my hands are even warmer. I’m incredibly grateful for my organ donor and their family. Because of their selfless decision, I’ve been given a second chance at life and can start planning for my future.”

Despite being blind with multiple medical challenges, Lopez never tells herself there’s something she can’t do.

“If I have to go somewhere I use landmarks when traveling on my own,” said Lopez. “My phone has accessibility to access rideshare and social media apps. When cooking for myself I use my hands to locate items on the stove. I cook things like rice, seafood, and spaghetti. It’s just about setting my mind to it.”

After recovering from surgery, she plans to attend Loyola University Chicago to study criminal investigation. She hopes to pursue a career in forensics and dreams of one day collecting evidence at crime scenes. 

Lopez and her fiancé, Christopher, are now planning a wedding in California and hope to tie the knot in 2026.  

Cancer’s toll on the heart

An estimated 18 million cancer survivors are currently in the United States and the number is expected to increase to nearly 22 million by 2030. Unfortunately, the same treatments that have improved outcomes for treating cancer can also damage the heart. 

According to the National Cancer Institute, adult survivors of childhood cancers are 10 times more likely to develop coronary disease and 15 times more likely to develop heart failure than their siblings. Treatment-related cardiovascular side effects – known as cardiotoxicities – are also common among survivors of adult cancers.

“When you think about life being unfair, Jessica was dealt a really difficult hand,” said Jonathan Rich, MD, a heart failure and heart transplantation cardiologist at Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. “As an infant, Jessica was diagnosed with cancer and found a way to be a cancer survivor. But in her case, the treatment she needed to become a cancer survivor likely led to her developing heart failure. It feels really unfair. Unfortunately, we do see this and in her in case I think that’s exactly what happened.” 

The Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute offer a collaborative Cardio-Oncology Program. The program provides seamless care between cardiology and oncology services for patients affected by cancer. 

To learn more about heart failure and transplant options, visit nm.org.

Chicago, IL – August 5, 2025 – For 28-year-old Dean Comstock of Syracuse, New York, music has always played an important role in his life. When he started playing guitar at the age of nine, one of his favorite songs was “Sweet Home Chicago,” but little did he know, 19 years later, that song would hold a whole new meaning.

In October 2023, Dean developed a cough that wouldn’t go away. At first, his doctors thought it was pneumonia or acid reflux, but on August 8, 2024, Dean was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. As an active community member who worked three jobs and didn’t have a history of smoking, Dean was shocked. He started chemotherapy, but his breathing got worse, and he soon had to rely on supplemental oxygen. Dean’s cancer was terminal, and he was quickly running out of options.  

That’s when his mom, Jill Comstock, who happened to receive a lung transplant in 2021 for pulmonary fibrosis at another hospital, asked her medical team if a lung transplant could be a possibility for him at their site. Her doctors told the family only one health system in the United States was known to perform lung transplants on patients with terminal lung cancer, and Dean would need to travel to Northwestern Medicine in Chicago to participate in a clinical trial known as DREAM, where select patients with advanced lung cancers receive double-lung transplants.

This March, Dean arrived at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he underwent a transplant evaluation and met with Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute.

By May 8, Dean was listed for a double-lung transplant and eight days later, he received his new lungs on May 16.

Making beautiful music together

One month later, on June 27, Dean celebrated his five-year wedding anniversary with his wife, McKayla Comstock, who is a music teacher at Jordan-Elbridge High School in Jordan, New York. In fact, the two first met in the same music room where McKayla now teaches, and they often play music together at weddings and special events.

Two months after his transplant, Dean and McKayla played for an audience in Chicago they’ll never forget – Dr. Bharat and members of the lung transplant team who helped save Dean’s life. Dean strummed his guitar in a clinic exam room as McKayla sang the lyrics to “Sweet Home Chicago.”

“The song has always been one of my favorite songs to play, and I really never knew why since I’m from Syracuse, New York, but now that a team of surgeons, doctors and nurses in Chicago saved my life, the city and the song will always hold a special place in my heart,” said Dean. “This is where miracles happen; right here at Northwestern Medicine.”  

Dean will remain in Chicago for one-year post-transplant so he can be near his medical team, and he’s looking forward to the future.

“I’m so thankful to be able to breathe fresh air every day. I’m thankful for my donor, my community, my family and everyone who has helped me along the way. I’m going to smell the roses a little bit more and enjoy life. Once you go through something like this, you learn how precious life really is,” said Dean.

Lung cancer cases on the rise in young people

Cancers of the lung are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States with more people dying of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined, and doctors have noticed a startling new trend.

“On a daily basis, we’re seeing more young people being diagnosed with lung cancer,” said Dr. Bharat. “Conventionally, lung cancer has been associated with smoking and older age. While smoking certainly increases your chances of developing lung cancer, we’re seeing an explosion of lung cancer cases in patients who have never smoked or had limited smoking exposure – like Dean.”

The Canning Thoracic Institute has launched a universal lung cancer screening program where patients who meet certain criteria can get screened for lung cancer, even if their insurance doesn’t provide financial support. The goal is to share the findings with the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force and urge them to let all patients beyond a certain age receive an annual lung cancer screening.

“If lung cancer is causing the most deaths in this country, impacting smokers and nonsmokers, we need a universal screening program just like we have for breast and colon cancer,” added Dr. Bharat.

About the DREAM Program

To date, Northwestern Medicine surgeons have performed more than 50 lung transplants for patients with advanced lung cancers.

Using lessons learned from pioneering COVID-19 lung transplantation in the U.S., they developed the novel surgical technique to clear the cancer during surgery while minimizing the risk of spread that has plagued prior such attempts at other hospitals.

“We’re very proud of the DREAM Program. This innovative technique involves putting the patient on full heart and lung bypass, delicately taking both cancer-ridden lungs out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, washing the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer, and then putting new lungs in,” said Dr. Bharat. “These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so we must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream. We believe this technique can help reduce the risk of recurrence, which we learned through our experience with pioneering COVID-19 lung transplants in 2020.”

Since Northwestern Medicine’s Lung Transplant Program first started in 2014, they’ve performed more than 600 lung transplant procedures for patients with end-stage lung diseases such as COVID, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and more. In 2024, Northwestern Medicine had the shortest wait time for a lung transplant in the U.S. with a median wait time of four days. They also performed 148 lung transplants, the most performed at any transplant center in the U.S. for 2024.

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the 24-hour referral line at 312.695.5864 or 844.639.5864. For more information about the Lung Transplant Program or lung cancer screenings, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – June 15, 2025 – Fifteen years ago, Andrew Wagner received a life-saving liver transplant. A relatively common autoimmune disease known as primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) had damaged the bile ducts in his liver, causing it to fail.

After six weeks in a medically induced coma, Wagner received his new liver at a Florida hospital in October 2010. Despite facing major blood loss, post-surgical complications and multiple follow-up surgeries, he went on to work as a recruitment manager at a local blood bank in Orlando, where he shared his personal story of how organ and blood donation had saved his life. However, in 2022, a routine abdominal and chest CT scan revealed new cause for concern: stage 1 lung cancer.

“I was completely shocked. I had no symptoms at all and this was found incidentally,” said Wagner, a 55-year-old non-smoker from Winter Garden, Florida. “Little did I know that even with a positive outcome, this cancer diagnosis was going to lead to one of the biggest roadblocks of my life.”

A year after surgeons in Florida removed his cancerous lung nodule and declared him cancer-free, Wagner began experiencing a build-up of fluid around his lungs. To his surprise, the symptom wasn’t his cancer returning – his transplanted liver was starting to fail.  

“When you get cancer after a transplant, you’re really between a rock and a hard place,” said Satish Nadig, MD, PhD, transplant surgeon and director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center. “When Andrew was diagnosed with lung cancer in Florida, some of his anti-rejection medications likely had to be reduced to give his immune system a chance to fight the disease, which may have contributed to rejection of his transplanted liver.”

The search for a second opinion

As Wagner’s condition worsened, his wife, Nicole Wagner, sprang into action. In the spring of 2024, she reached out to transplant centers across the country hoping that someone would agree to a second transplant. However, because Wagner had not been cancer-free for three to five years, they were told repeatedly that a retransplant wasn’t an option.

While searching for answers online, Wagner’s wife came across the story of Gary Gibbon, MD – a California physician who traveled to Northwestern Medicine to receive the first double-lung and liver transplant for advanced lung cancer in the U.S.

Since Dr. Gibbon had been transplanted with active lung cancer, the Wagners figured the transplant team at Northwestern Medicine might be willing to take on Wagner’s case. In October 2024, the couple traveled to Chicago to get Wagner evaluated for a second liver transplant at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. There, they received the ‘yes’ they had been searching for.

“Andrew was really on the brink when he first got to Chicago. He likely had months to live,” said Northwestern Medicine hepatologist Andres Duarte-Rojo, MD. “After presenting his case to our multidisciplinary selection committee, we determined that even with immunosuppression, the risk of his lung cancer relapsing was very low. Though we knew the surgery would be difficult, as retransplants tend to be, we were excited to offer him this critical chance for survival.”

On Dec. 16, 2024, surgeons at Northwestern Medicine began the complex process of retransplanting Wagner’s liver. Previous surgeries left him with a significant amount of scar tissue, making his old liver difficult to remove. To minimize blood loss during the extraction, surgeons placed Wagner on bypass to ensure he’d have adequate blood flow to his heart. While surgeons removed his old liver, his new liver was kept functioning outside the body in a device called “liver in a box,” which pumps warm, oxygenated blood through the organ to keep it healthy.

“Having access to this wide range of techniques allowed us to navigate Andrew’s transplant effectively,” said Northwestern Medicine transplant surgeon Zachary Dietch, MD. “It was an interesting blend of old and new – traditional methods like bypass used alongside the latest advancements in transplant such as ‘liver in a box.’”

A father heads home

Five months after surgery, Wagner’s new liver is functioning well and he remains cancer-free. Since returning home to Winter Garden, he has been focused on staying active with walking, weightlifting, swimming and biking around his neighborhood. He is looking forward to spending Father’s Day with his blended family including his wife and two biological daughters, Estella Wagner (16) and Ava Wagner (19), two step-daughters, Riley Swartz (20) and Taylor Castillo (23) and the family’s newest addition, granddaughter Isla Castillo, who was born in April 2025.

“This particular Father’s Day will be so incredibly joyous,” said Wagner. “Receiving the greatest gift of life from the most generous organ donor has given me the opportunity to witness all the future milestones in our daughters’ and granddaughter’s lives. Thanks to my donor and my incredible transplant team at Northwestern Medicine, I still get to be a dad and grandfather.”

“Andrew not only connected with me as a daddy, but as a daughter-daddy,” said Dr. Nadig. “A few days after his transplant, I was talking to Nicole about a trip to Disney World my wife and I had planned for our daughter’s eighth birthday. Living close to the theme park, the Wagners were able to gift me with ‘Mickey ears’ for us to surprise her with. It’s families like that who remind you why you got into medicine in the first place, and why we are willing to take on the most complicated cases at Northwestern Medicine.”

Advancements in transplant oncology

Northwestern Medicine is one of the few known health systems in the country focused on redefining the criteria for transplant eligibility, especially for patients with lung or colorectal cancer. To date, the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute has performed more than 50 lung transplants for patients with advanced lung cancers through a first-of-it’s-kind clinical program called DREAM (Double Lung Transplant Registry Aimed for Lung-Limited Malignancies).

In March 2025, the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center launched a clinical program called CLEAR (Colorectal Metastasis to Liver Extraction with Auxiliary Transplant and Delayed Resection) to expand liver transplant access for patients with stage 4 colorectal cancer.

“It’s a very exciting time for the field of transplantation,” said Dr. Nadig. “What we’ve learned in the past is not necessarily what we’re taking with us into the future. I think it’s time to re-examine what we think we know about the indications for transplant, and become more inclusive of those who have recently faced or who are facing cancer. Northwestern Medicine should not be a stop along a patient’s journey – it should the destination.”

For more information about Northwestern Medicine’s transplant programs, visit nm.org.

CHICAGO – May 11, 2025 – Eight months after giving birth to twins, Cornelia Tischmacher of Berlin, Germany, had a case of pneumonia that wouldn’t go away. The then 40-year-old went to the doctor in January 2018, where tests showed she had stage 3 lung cancer. As a nonsmoker who was healthy, worked out and had a busy career as an art historian and gallerist, Tischmacher was shocked by the diagnosis.

“I absolutely loved my job and had to travel quite a bit for work, but when I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, my priorities immediately shifted. I knew I had to do everything I could to stay alive for my children,” said Tischmacher. “My twins would never hear me say the words, ‘Mommy is going to die.’”

In June 2018, Tischmacher underwent surgery and chemotherapy to get rid of the cancer, but by October 2019, it returned. Doctors told her palliative care with chemotherapy and immunotherapy was the only option to possibly slow down the cancer’s relentless progression.  

By June 2024, she could no longer breathe without supplemental oxygen and that’s when Tischmacher discovered a first-of-its-kind clinical program at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago called DREAM (Double Lung Transplant Registry Aimed for Lung-Limited Malignancies), where select patients with advanced lung cancers confined to the lungs can be considered for a double-lung transplant. Currently, Northwestern Medicine is one of the only known health systems in the world with a dedicated lung transplant program for patients with advanced cancers limited to the lungs. 

“During our first telehealth visit with Cornelia, it was clear to us that she was at the end of the road,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute who performed Tischmacher’s transplant. “Cornelia had failed every other medical treatment available to her, including surgeries, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, but the cancer continued to progress to stage 4 and became so advanced that it was causing her lungs to fail. She couldn’t breathe, and a lung transplant was her only option to fix the lung failure, remove all the cancer cells from her body, and give her a fighting chance to be there for her twins.”

Leaving her life in Berlin for a second chance at life

After being accepted to the DREAM Program, Tischmacher boarded an air ambulance and flew from Berlin to Chicago in December 2024. She was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and placed on the transplant waiting list on Christmas Eve. Two days after being listed, Tischmacher received new lungs on December 26, which was the second day of Christmas in Germany.

“With how quickly her disease was progressing, it was clear to us that Cornelia would not be able to leave the hospital without receiving a lung transplant. She was requiring up to 60 liters of oxygen per minute through her nasal cannulae, which is the absolute limit you can supply without a ventilator. For that very reason, we worked around the clock to complete her lung transplant workup and arrange all the logistics needed for her to stay in the United States,” said Krishnan Warrior, MD, a lung transplant pulmonologist at the Canning Thoracic Institute who has been caring for Tischmacher since her arrival.

“Receiving my lung transplant on December 26 was the best Christmas present I could have asked for,” said Tischmacher. “I remember waking up and thinking for the first time in a long time, I will be able to go to museums and go for bike rides with my kids without bringing an oxygen tank with me. I could finally breathe again. It was such a gift that I don’t take for granted, and I encourage everyone (who is able) to register as an organ donor – not just in the United States, but also in Germany.”

Reuniting with her 8-year-old twins

Tischmacher spent one week recovering at Northwestern Memorial before being discharged to an apartment in Chicago. The 48-year-old will remain in the city for one-year post-transplant to be near her medical team. The most difficult part is being far away from her husband, Udo Kittelmann, and their 8-year-old twins, Leo and Lucie, who remain in Berlin to continue their schooling. The twins were able to visit their mom for the first time since December, when they were reunited in Chicago in mid-April for spring break.

“Seeing my children for the first time in four months was absolutely wonderful. The weight of my illness had weighed them down, and to see me healthy again was overwhelming – but in a good way,” said Tischmacher. “It’s a happy continuation of the story because it could have been so different. When we said our initial ‘goodbyes’ in December, it was much more dramatic because we didn’t know how things would go.”

Tischmacher currently has no signs of cancer in her body and is now able to walk around Chicago, touring the local art galleries, breathing on her own. She was the first patient from Germany to receive a lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine. In the past, patients have also traveled from Asia, Brazil, Colombia, Canada, the Middle East and other parts of Europe for a lung transplant. The team at Northwestern Medicine International Health welcomes patients from around the globe who seek advanced treatment for a variety of medical conditions.   

“Medicine is evolving rapidly, but unfortunately, the way medicine is practiced globally, not all treatments are available at all sites right away,” said Dr. Bharat. “Often when a center develops something new, it takes years for it to be available across the country or internationally. It’s very important for patients to find a second opinion and take matters into their own hands when they’re being told there are no other options.”

Lung cancer cases on the rise in young women

Cancers of the lung are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States with more people dying of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined, and doctors have noticed a startling new trend.

“On a daily basis, we’re seeing more young women being diagnosed with lung cancer,” said Dr. Bharat. “Conventionally, lung cancer has been associated with smoking and older age. While smoking certainly increases your chances of developing lung cancer, we’re seeing an explosion of lung cancer cases in patients who have never smoked or had limited smoking exposure – like Cornelia. The majority of them are young, and the majority are women, and we still aren’t sure why this is happening.”

The Canning Thoracic Institute has started several research programs to try and understand why more women are being diagnosed with lung cancer. They also launched a universal lung cancer screening program where patients who meet certain criteria can get screened for lung cancer, even if their insurance doesn’t provide financial support. The goal is to share the findings with the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force and urge them to let all patients beyond a certain age receive an annual lung cancer screening.

“If lung cancer is causing the most deaths in this country, impacting smokers and nonsmokers, we need a universal screening program just like we have for breast and colon cancer,” added Dr. Bharat.

About the DREAM Program

To date, Northwestern Medicine surgeons have performed more than 50 lung transplants for patients with advanced lung cancers.

Using lessons learned from pioneering COVID-19 lung transplantation in the U.S., they developed the novel surgical technique to clear the cancer during surgery while minimizing the risk of spread that has plagued prior such attempts at other hospitals.

“We’re very proud of the DREAM Program. This innovative technique involves putting the patient on full heart and lung bypass, delicately taking both cancer-ridden lungs out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, washing the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer, and then putting new lungs in,” said Dr. Bharat. “These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so we must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream. We believe this technique can help reduce the risk of recurrence, which we learned through our experience with pioneering COVID-19 lung transplants in 2020.”

Since Northwestern Medicine’s Lung Transplant Program first started in 2014, they’ve performed more than 600 lung transplant procedures for patients with end-stage lung diseases such as COVID, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and more. In 2024, Northwestern Medicine had the shortest wait time for a lung transplant in the U.S. with a median wait time of four days. They also performed 148 lung transplants, the most performed at any transplant center in the U.S. for 2024.

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the 24-hour referral line at 312.695.5864 or 844.639.5864. For more information about the Lung Transplant Program or lung cancer screenings, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – February 5, 2025 – In an effort to expand the donor pool for lung transplant recipients and give surgeons more time to removed diseased lungs, the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute (CTI) is now routinely repairing damaged donor lungs using “lungs in a box” (lung perfusion) technology and storing them for transplantation by putting “lungs in a fridge” (lung refrigeration). These innovative approaches are yielding dramatic benefits for patients and staff alike.

In 2024, CTI’s Lung Transplant Program finished the year by performing 148 lung transplants, their highest volume for a single year since the program began 10 years ago. For the first time, CTI also become the highest volume lung transplant center in the United States and achieved the shortest wait time for a lung transplant, with a median wait time of four days. 

“Since our lung transplant program launched 10 years ago, several innovations helped us reach these achievements for 2024. From performing the first COVID-19 lung transplants in the U.S., to starting a lung transplant program for select patients with advanced lung cancers, and replacing diseased lungs with breast implants to bridge patients to lung transplantation, we’re continuously thinking outside the box and ‘lungs in a fridge’ is another example,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute. “In 2024, we used ‘lungs in a box’ to repair the most number of donor lungs that weren’t initially usable at Northwestern Medicine, enabling us to achieve a record wait list time of only four days. And now, with controlled lung refrigeration, we can keep the lungs alive outside the human body for an extended period of time, giving us more time to prepare for transplantation and perform the surgery.”

“With a combination of ‘lungs in a box’ and ‘lungs in a fridge’ technologies, we also now have the option for patients at any transplant center in the country or overseas who experience longer wait-times to dual list with us, and in 2024, patients traveled from places such as Germany, the United Kingdom and Columbia to receive a lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine,” said Ambalavanan Arunachalam, MD, pulmonologist and interim medical director of CTI’s Lung Transplant Program.  

Lung refrigeration was pioneered in Canada and Europe, and within the last few months, it was adopted successfully at Northwestern Medicine, where organ procurement specialists travel to hospitals across the United States to collect donor lungs, and once the lungs arrive at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, staff place them in a special refrigerator which is set at 10 degrees Celsius. The lungs can remain in the fridge up to 12 hours before transplantation when the conventional techniques only allowed them to stay outside for about six hours.  

“Prior to using the fridge, we were storing the donor lungs on ice, which is four degrees Celsius, and we had to perform the recipient lung implant surgery immediately without the opportunity to extend the preservation time,” said Anitha Chandrasekhar, DMSc, clinical lead for lung bioengineering with the Canning Thoracic Institute. “Studies show that 10-degree Celsius storage of lungs allows safe prolongation of cold ischemic times, results in better mitochondrial health with reduced inflammatory response, ultimately leading to better post-transplant outcomes, benefitting patients and health care teams.”

Four main benefits for using “lungs in a fridge”

Widens the donor pool

Lung refrigeration widens the donor pool by allowing Northwestern Medicine’s organ procurement team to travel greater distances for donor lungs. Previously, there was only so much time that the lungs could be kept alive outside the body, which restricted how far the organ procurement specialists could travel. From the moment they’d take the lungs out of the donor, they’d have six hours to package up the lungs, get to a local airport, fly to Chicago, drive to Northwestern Memorial, take the old lungs out and put the new lungs in.

“With this new type of preservation, our organ procurement specialists can fly to the East Coast, West Coast and potentially even Canada or Mexico. As a result, our wait times for lung transplant patients have dramatically gone down,” said Dr. Arunachalam.

Fewer overnight transplants

Storing donor lungs at 10 degrees Celsius allows for more flexible transplant scheduling. Lung refrigeration helps improve transplant logistics, which in turn, makes lung transplantation a semi-elective procedure performed during normal working hours.

“Previously, these transplants would happen in the middle of the night when the team may not be in the best physical or mental capacity. For example, if the procurement team arrives at 1 am with the donor lungs, we can now put the lungs in the fridge and wait to do the transplant at 7 am. By keeping the lungs preserved at 10 degrees Celsius, the team can operate during regular hours after a full night’s rest, which helps with success rates and lowers the chance of medical errors,” said Dr. Bharat. “Also, given the tough hours for lung transplant surgery, fewer surgeons have been interested in the field, resulting in a significant shortage of thoracic surgeons. But with this new strategy, more talented surgeons may be interested in adopting lung transplantation in their career.”

Improves surgical schedules

Transplants are often unpredictable. Donor lungs can become available on short notice, so in some instances, elective surgeries have to be cancelled in order to get the transplant done in time, which causes an inconvenience for patients who have been waiting for their elective surgeries (ex: cancer patients). “Lungs in a fridge” allows the surgical team to keep elective surgeries and schedule the lung transplant procedures during times that work best for staff and patients. It also helps lung transplant recipients because they no longer have to rush from their home to the hospital in a short period of time to get their lung transplants within the six-hour window.

“Lung refrigeration provides us with more options for getting our transplant recipients one step closer to a better quality of life,” said Denisha Gardner, organ procurement specialist with the Canning Thoracic Institute. “There are times when our recipients need a certain medication to be given hours before transplantation. Having the fridge allows us the opportunity to make sure everything is aligned for a successful procedure.”

More time to remove diseased lungs

Double-lung transplants are one of the most complex medical procedures in health care. Lung refrigeration gives surgeons more time to remove the diseased lungs, especially in patients with lung cancer.

Northwestern Medicine started a first-of-its-kind clinical program called DREAM that provides double-lung transplants to select patients with advanced lung cancers who are out of treatment options. With these patients, their cancer-ridden lungs must delicately be taken out at the same time along with the lymph nodes, then surgeons need to wash the airways and the chest cavity to clear the cancer before transplanting new lungs. These patients can have billions of cancer cells in the lungs, so surgeons must be extremely meticulous to not let a single cell spill into the patient’s chest cavity or blood stream.

Having more time in the operating room to remove the cancer-ridden lungs can help reduce the risk of recurrence.

Successful patient outcomes with lung refrigeration

Tadd Crosslin – Mansfield, Texas

Tadd Crosslin of Mansfield, Texas, (located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area) received a double-lung transplant at Northwestern Memorial on September 23, 2024. The 49-year-old who is married (wife is Courtney) with twin sons (Cody and Blake), was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in 2016 at the age of 40, and it advanced to stage 4 by 2019.

While undergoing chemotherapy and surgery, Crosslin’s medical team noticed lung nodules forming but told him not to worry. Soon, the lung nodules started multiplying and Crosslin had hundreds of tumors on his lungs, which caused him to have difficulty breathing.

“I traveled to major health systems in Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey, New York and even Germany, looking for a second opinion, but they all told me there was nothing more they could do,” said Crosslin. “Giving up was never an option for me, and Northwestern Medicine doesn’t shy away from exploring new techniques and technology. Without them, I wouldn’t be here today.”

On September 23, Crosslin received his new lungs, but the surgery wasn’t easy. Because there were so many tumors and extensive cancer inside Crosslin’s old lungs, his explant was extremely difficult (see pictures here).

“Having the refrigerator was a game-changer in Tadd’s lung transplant procedure,” added Dr. Bharat. “Because his diseased lungs were fused so tightly to his chest cavity, we kept needing more time to remove them. We couldn’t let his new lungs go bad, so we were able to store them in the fridge until we were ready to transplant them.”

The Double Lung Replacement and Multidisciplinary Care (DREAM) Program is a first-of-its-kind clinical initiative at Northwestern Medicine that provides double-lung transplants to select patients with advanced lung cancers who are not responding to conventional treatments. To date, more than 40 patients have received double-lung transplants through the DREAM Program.

Amanda Long – Nashville, Tennessee

Amanda Long of Nashville, Tenn., is also a DREAM patient. The 48-year-old wife (husband is James) and mother of three daughters (Kenzie, Maddie and Makenna) was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in September 2023.

“As a non-smoker who eats healthy and works out five-days-a-week, I was completely shocked by the diagnosis,” said Long.

When immunotherapy and chemotherapy treatments didn’t work, Long’s medical team in Nashville recommended she reach out to the lung transplant team at Northwestern Medicine. Long was listed for a lung transplant on August 15, 2024, and received her new lungs on August 21.

Because it took the surgical team longer to remove her diseased lungs due to the cancer, lung refrigeration was also used to store Long’s new lungs. Long is now back home in Nashville and will return to Northwestern Memorial once-a-month for follow up appointments.   

“The fridge is so simple and doesn’t further complicate what might be one of the more complex procedures in health care. If anything, it makes everything go more smoothly for the team in the operating room,” added Jeff Lysne, practice administrator for the Canning Thoracic Institute. “Overall, it’s been great to see such a simple innovation used to expand our donor pool and help more patients.”

For more information

In 2024, the lung transplant team used “lungs in a fridge” for approximately 12 patients, all with good outcomes. Since CTI’s Lung Transplant Program started in 2014, they’ve performed nearly 600 lung transplant procedures. Currently, more than 900 patients in the U.S. are waiting for new lungs.

Patients interested in being evaluated for a lung transplant can contact the referral line at 844.639.5864. For more information about Northwestern Medicine, as well as advanced therapies, visit nm.org. 

OAK BROOK, ILLINOIS – Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, Alex Timchak, 47, had a deep cough. Days later, the cough went away, but pain in his left side did not.

“That was new. I never had that before and after about a week, I decided I needed to reach out to my primary care doctor,” said Timchak, a psychiatrist who lives in River Forest, Illinois.   

Timchak says his primary care doctor told him imaging showed his pancreas was inflamed and the pancreatic duct was enlarged. He referred Timchak to a gastroenterologist at another health system. During an endoscopy, no mass was detected, but a biopsy was obtained near the area where the pancreatic duct looked abnormal. The biopsy results came back normal, and the gastroenterologist recommended follow-up imaging in a month.

“That didn't seem to make the most sense to me, so I made an appointment at Northwestern Medicine for a second opinion,” Timchak said. 

Getting a second opinion

Timchak went to see interventional gastroenterologist Sri Komanduri, MD, at the Northwestern Medicine Oak Brook Outpatient Center and underwent another biopsy.

While waiting for the results, Timchak and his wife visited their son, who attends college at the University of Alabama. They had just sat in the stadium for their first Alabama football game, when Dr. Komanduri called with the results.

“Fortunately for Alex, we did repeat that endoscopic ultrasound and what we saw was a small growth in the pancreas. However, when we took the biopsy of this lesion, this came back as what is called a neuroendocrine tumor, which is very different than a typical cancer of the pancreas or what we call adenocarcinoma,” Dr. Komanduri said. “The reason this is so different is it has a much slower growth rate and doesn't spread to adjacent organs anywhere nearly as quickly as the standard cancer of the pancreas.”

“I am not going to lie, I jumped up and pumped my fist and screamed loudly, ‘Yes’, because I knew that this was a completely different picture than what I was most fearing,” Timchak said.

Fearing the worst

Timchak had been worried he would suffer the same fate as his father, who died of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma at age 70. 

“I've got four amazing kids, a beautiful wife and a job that I love, and the thought of having to fight a really aggressive cancer that has a very low, five-year survival rate that was a lot to have to think about and work through,” said Timchak.

Learning he had a different form of cancer that was highly treatable was a gamechanger. 

Dr. Komanduri recommended a referral for consideration of surgery to remove the cancerous lesion. 

Moving forward, cancer-free

Surgical oncologist David Bentrem, MD, with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, discussed surgical options with Timchak. They determined a Whipple procedure, which involves removing the head of the pancreas, the first part of the small intestine and the gall bladder and a portion of the bile duct, was the best course of action.

“By removing the lesion completely, we are eliminating the need for any further treatment. Alex will need monitoring and surveillance, but there’s no need for chemotherapy or radiation. The cure rate is over 90%,” Dr. Bentrem said. 

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, on November 14, the procedure was performed at Northwestern Memorial, successfully removing the cancerous tumor.

The tumor had clear margins and 24 lymph nodes were negative for cancer. Timchak said the operation and recovery all went as planned.

“To be able to get back to a point where I am almost back to my pre-surgical level of functioning is just such a blessing and a gift and it's because I have a supportive family and supportive colleagues, but also an amazing medical team here at Northwestern Medicine,” Timchak said.

Understanding pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are less common than other types of pancreatic cancer and often misdiagnosed, which can delay diagnosis and treatment. 

Northwestern Medicine offers a multidisciplinary team of experts who specialize in NETs with care available at locations across Chicagoland, including pathologists with experise in identifying and diagnosing these rare tumors.

“Neuroendocrine tumors are rare in general,” said Dr. Komanduri. “With that said, when we're talking about all the growths that we see in the pancreas, even amongst that, the vast majority are adenocarcinoma, or cancers of the pancreas. However, a small percentage of them can be these neuroendocrine tumors which make the proper testing and diagnosis very critical, in terms of which direction you take the patient moving forward,” Dr. Komanduri said.

For more information about NETs and treatment options for pancreatic cancer, visit nm.org.

CHICAGO – December 24, 2024 – In December 2023, while pregnant with her first child, MaKenna Lauterbach developed a cough that wouldn’t go away. The then 26-year-old, who lives on a farm with horses and goats in Washburn, Ill., mentioned the cough to her local doctors, but because she was pregnant, her doctors were reluctant to perform chest scans due to possible radiation exposure.

“I give hay to the horses every morning and noticed how winded I was becoming with a dry cough. My body felt like I just ran two miles, when in reality, I had only walked to the barn and back,” said Lauterbach. “I knew something was wrong.”

By the time Lauterbach was 36-weeks pregnant, the cough was so bad that she started throwing up while coughing. After she was hospitalized for shortness of breath, doctors obtained imaging and discovered a large, grapefruit-sized tumor in her middle chest cavity and right lung, completely blocking the artery to the right lung. 

Lauterbach was in respiratory distress, which meant both she and the baby weren’t getting adequate oxygen. Due to her critical condition, Lauterbach was flown to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and rushed to an intensive care unit where a large team of obstetricians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, nurses and staff awaited her. There, the maternal-fetal medicine team also noticed Lauterbach’s blood pressure was rising, she was contracting, and the baby wasn’t tolerating the contractions well.

“MaKenna was in real trouble, and we had to act quickly – this wasn’t something that could wait for Monday morning,” said Lynn Yee, MD, maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine. “When you’re pregnant with a baby that’s nearly full-term, your lungs already aren’t functioning at full capacity, and when you add a huge tumor on top of it, you run the risk of having respiratory collapse and cardiac arrest.”

In the early hours of Easter Sunday on March 31, after preparing the patient to potentially need extracorporeal life support (ECMO) after delivery, Dr. Yee performed an emergency cesarean section and a healthy baby boy named Colter was born. He remained in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital for one week, where the family formed a connection with the nursing staff, especially clinical nurse Mary Schuessler.

“Because of the tumor, the delivery happened so quickly. I was grieving the birth plan I had spent months preparing for, while also dealing with the news of my unexpected diagnosis,” said Lauterbach. “My situation was serious, and while my clinical team was working on a plan to treat my cancer, it was comforting to know that Mary and the rest of the NICU nurses were taking such wonderful care of our son. My husband (Parker) and I can’t thank them enough.”

Making the Diagnosis and Developing a Treatment Plan

Following the delivery, doctors needed to figure out what type of tumor Lauterbach had. Kalvin Lung, MD, a thoracic surgeon with the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, was able to obtain a sample of the tumor with advanced bronchoscopy to diagnose Lauterbach with stage 3 melanoma. Knowing the benefit of a team approach to provide the most innovative treatments, Dr. Lung reached out to Sunandana Chandra, MD, medical oncologist with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, to see if there was anything to offer Lauterbach to help shrink the tumor before surgery.

“MaKenna’s diagnosis was difficult to make because we weren’t sure if the melanoma started in the chest or somewhere else, and there isn’t much literature or published cases on how to best treat tumors like these, so we had to rely on the expertise that we’ve developed here at Northwestern Medicine,” said Dr. Lung.

Based on a nationwide clinical trial that Northwestern Medicine was a part of, researchers discovered pre-surgical immunotherapy can ultimately improve surgical outcomes for advanced melanoma patients. Dr. Chandra recommended Lauterbach go through three cycles of immunotherapy before surgery, which helped shrink the tumor from 13 centimeters to nine centimeters, allowing Dr. Lung and Chris Mehta, MD, a cardiac surgeon with the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute who specializes in complex heart reconstruction, to remove Lauterbach’s entire right lung, parts of the main pulmonary artery and lymph nodes. 

“The tumor was sitting on top of MaKenna’s heart and extended into the right lung, impacting all three lobes and the entire main trunk of the pulmonary artery, which is why we had to remove the right lung,” said Dr. Lung.

“It's extremely rare to see this type of tumor invading into the major blood vessels of the heart,” added Dr. Mehta. “We may see something like this once every few years.”

“We think at some point, MaKenna had a melanoma on her skin and her own immune system took care of it, but not before a cell or two may have escaped and eventually started growing inside her body,” explained Dr. Chandra. “After three doses of immunotherapy, once she was taken to surgery, the surgical specimen showed no melanoma cells that were viable. MaKenna’s scans currently show no evidence of metastatic melanoma, and the hope is with continued surveillance, we’ll continue to show she has no evidence of disease. Medically, this is an amazing story with profound results. This type of outcome for our patients is what we always hope for.”

Celebrating the Milestones

Lauterbach will continue immunotherapy treatments for one year. Her cancer is currently a stable disease, meaning no new tumors have appeared. She celebrated her 27th birthday in October and is looking forward to her son’s first Christmas on the farm.

“Colter's the best baby. He's always happy and sleeps through the night,” said Lauterbach. “I’m so grateful to have Colter and Parker in my life, and I can’t say enough about the wonderful medical team that saved my life. Because of Northwestern Medicine, I’m here today.”

“It brings tears to my eyes to see MaKenna doing so well, and seeing Colter thriving is amazing. It just goes to show that when you get all the right medical teams in place, you can truly help families thrive,” said Dr. Yee.

To learn more about Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org.  

Naples, FL — October 28, 2024 — Naples Comprehensive Health (NCH) announced today a strategic collaboration with Northwestern Medicine with a focus on enhancing and expanding cancer care services. Leveraging the expertise of Northwestern Medicine, NCH will establish a comprehensive cancer program to support the growing clinical needs to treat and care for cancer patients in Southwest Florida.

As part of the collaboration, NCH will have access to a variety of clinical resources offered by Northwestern Medicine including the ability to consult with oncology experts, refer patients for second opinions and the opportunity to leverage the latest in clinical trial offerings. Northwestern Medicine is also home to the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. Designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Lurie Cancer Center is one of only 57 Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation and one of the first centers to receive a Merit Extension Award from NCI.

“This is a unique opportunity to leverage our expertise and share best practices with the goal of enhancing the cancer care offerings in Southwest Florida,” said Howard Chrisman, MD, president and chief executive officer, Northwestern Memorial HealthCare. “Backed by a nationally ranked cancer program and leading oncology experts, we believe this collaboration has the potential to have a lasting impact on current and future NCH patients.”

For years, NCH has worked diligently to transform itself into an Advanced Community Healthcare System^TM committed to bringing more comprehensive and acute care to Southwest Florida, so residents won’t have to travel far to get it. To that end, this collaboration will advance cancer screening programs aimed at ensuring early detection and introduce patient navigation programs to support cancer patients through their journey.

Dr. Ed Grendys, a gynecologic oncologist, has been named Medical Director to lead the advancement of the NCH Women’s Cancer Program. This effort will include the opening of a women’s cancer center on the NCH North Naples campus, offering comprehensive gynecologic oncology surgery and treatment.

“NCH is proud to collaborate with Northwestern Medicine - one of the premier healthcare organizations in oncology. Through this partnership, our patients will gain access to leading-edge clinical trials, cancer specialists and experts who define the national treatment guidelines for cancer,” said Paul Hiltz, president and chief executive officer, NCH. “We will continue to recruit new physicians and nurses to Southwest Florida to support our growing oncology program. These expanding services allow cancer patients the opportunity to receive the best possible care right here in Southwest Florida with the world’s best cancer specialists.”

Northwestern Medicine is Chicago’s premier integrated academic health system. Dedicated to providing the most advanced health care to patients, the health system is anchored by Northwestern Memorial Hospital. For 13 consecutive years, Northwestern Memorial has been named to the Best Hospital Honor Roll by U.S. News and World Report, with 11 specialties ranked nationally. Most noteworthy being, Northwestern Memorial is one of only three hospitals in the nation to receive a U.S. News rating of High Performing in all procedures and conditions. The health system’s cancer program is nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report and provides patients with access to state-of-the art therapies, highly specialized cancer care teams, specialized research and clinical trials.

“Through the continued generosity of our community, NCH will continue to rapidly expand cancer treatment and prevention services,” said Scott Lutgert, board chair, NCH. “NCH’s vision is to open a comprehensive cancer center that incorporates the best practices of leading cancer centers in the U.S., including Northwestern.”

CHICAGO – November 15, 2024 – Can lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic help treat cancer? A new study led by researchers at the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation has revealed a connection between COVID-19 infection and cancer regression. The team’s discovery could pave the way for novel cancer treatments.

In an unexpected twist, researchers observed that the RNA from the SARS-CoV-2 virus – responsible for COVID-19 – triggered the development of a unique type of immune cell with anti-cancer properties. These cells, dubbed “inducible nonclassical monocytes (I-NCMs),” were found to attack cancer cells and could potentially be harnessed to treat cancers that are resistant to current therapies. These findings possibly explain the mechanism behind the reported regression of certain cancers following COVID-19 infection.

“This discovery opens up a new avenue for cancer treatment,” said Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute. “We found that the same cells activated by severe COVID-19 could be induced with a drug to fight cancer, and we specifically saw a response with melanoma, lung, breast and colon cancer in the study. While this is still in the early stages and the effectiveness was only studied in preclinical animal models, it offers hope that we might be able to use this approach to benefit patients with advanced cancers that have not responded to other treatments.”

The study, conducted using both human tissues and animal models, found that these unique immune cells could be pharmacologically stimulated using small molecules, potentially creating a new therapeutic option for cancer patients. This discovery could have significant implications, particularly for patients with aggressive or advanced cancers who have exhausted traditional treatment options such as immunotherapies.

How the Body’s Response to COVID-19 Could Help Fight Cancer
The researchers discovered that during COVID-19, a special subset of immune cells can be stimulated in the body. This process begins when the RNA from the virus activates certain signals in the immune system. These signals cause the transformation of common monocytes – an ordinary type of white blood cell – into I-NCMs. These newly formed cells have the ability to move into both the blood vessels and the surrounding tissue where tumors grow, something most other immune cells can’t do.

“What makes these cells so special is their dual capability,” said Dr. Bharat, who is also professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Typically, immune cells called non-classical monocytes patrol blood vessels, looking for threats. But they can't enter the tumor site itself due to the lack of specific receptors. In contrast, the I-NCMs created during severe COVID-19 retain a unique receptor called CCR2, allowing them to travel beyond blood vessels and infiltrate the tumor environment. Once there, they release certain chemicals to recruit body’s natural killer cells. These killer cells then swarm the tumor and start attacking the cancer cells directly, helping to shrink the tumor.”

What’s Next?
While this research is promising, Dr. Bharat cautions that more work is needed before this approach can be used in clinical settings.

“We are in the early stages, but the potential to transform cancer treatment is there. Our next steps will involve clinical trials to see if we can safely and effectively use these findings to help cancer patients,” added Dr. Bharat.

The team hopes that, with further research, they can develop therapies that specifically target these cells to treat cancers that are currently difficult to manage. This could lead to new treatment options for patients who have exhausted all other possibilities.

The research could potentially play an important role with the Canning Thoracic Institute’s Double Lung Replacement and Multidisciplinary Care (DREAM) Program, a first-of-its-kind clinical initiative at Northwestern Medicine that provides double-lung transplants to select patients with advanced lung cancers who are not responding to conventional treatments. To date, more than 40 patients have received double-lung transplants through the DREAM Program.

“While the program has been highly successful, we do anticipate that some patients might have recurrence. Since we’re using monocytes with our research, we could potentially treat DREAM patients without risking rejection of their new lungs,” said Dr. Bharat.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Canning Thoracic Institute, and conducted by a team of scientists from Feinberg School of Medicine and clinicians at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. For more information about Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org. 

CHICAGO – November 12, 2024 – At six years old, Luke Bucciarelli already knows he wants to be a surgeon when he grows up. But not just any surgeon – a thoracic surgeon; someone who operates on organs in the chest, including the lungs, esophagus, trachea and heart.

“I want to be a thoracic surgeon because we need lungs to breathe, and when the lungs get sick, I want to help make people feel better,” said Luke.

The kindergartner from Brentwood, Tenn., loves watching surgical videos on YouTube and when he stumbled across an “Inside the OR” video of Sam Kim, MD, a thoracic surgeon at Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, performing robotic lung cancer surgery, Luke couldn’t stop watching. In fact, Luke started performing “surgery” on a banana with surgical tools he borrowed from a retired surgeon and family friend, and was able to attend an educational event where he could test out a surgical robot. (Photos of the banana and surgical robot linked here.)

“The da Vinci® surgical robot that Dr. Kim uses for his cancer cases has different joystick levers, so it’s like watching a video game, which is very cool,” Luke said. 

“We created that ‘Inside the OR’ video several years ago for our patients who have lung cancer, because many patients get scared and don’t know what’s going to happen inside the operating room,” explained Dr. Kim. “With the video, we’re able to demystify the process and make patients feel more comfortable before surgery.”

Dr. Kim Surprises His Biggest (Little) Fan

Wanting to thank Dr. Kim for inspiring her son to become a thoracic surgeon, Luke’s mom, Katherine Bucciarelli, called Northwestern Medicine and left a message – anticipating maybe an email response. To her shock, not only did Dr. Kim want to talk to Luke, but he had a very special surprise for him.

“Dr. Kim called Luke via FaceTime and took him virtually inside his operating room, letting Luke see the surgical robot up close and personal. Dr. Kim also told us that if we’re ever in Chicago, we need to stop by Northwestern Memorial Hospital and he would give us a personal tour,” said Katherine. “Dr. Kim went above and beyond. Luke still hasn’t stopped talking about it!”

“It was so neat to see Dr. Kim’s operating room, and now I know how to wash my hands for surgery – you have to scrub past the elbows!” said Luke.

“I don’t have a lot of fans who are six years old, but when I heard that a kindergartner from Tennessee was watching our robotic lung cancer surgery video and it inspired him to one day become a thoracic surgeon, I knew I wanted to do something special for him,” said Dr. Kim. “Many kids want to grow up to be rockstars or athletes, but working in health care is a very fulfilling, rewarding job that does good for a lot of people. I hope videos like this inspire even more kids out there and demonstrates that if you apply yourself and are dedicated to your work, someday you can join me inside the operating room.”

Thoracic Surgeons in Demand

As the population grows and ages, demand for cardiothoracic surgeons is expected to increase. By 2035, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) projects 900 cardiothoracic surgeons will retire while demand for surgeries will increase by 20 percent, resulting in a 31 percent shortfall of surgeons within the specialty, which is the largest projected shortfall of any physician specialty.

“The demand for cardiothoracic surgeons is why it’s so important to inspire and invest in the next generation – like Luke,” added Dr. Kim. “While we’ve made strides in treating lung cancer, the disease is still the most commonly diagnosed cancer, and we need more surgeons who are willing and wanting to help these patients.”

Lung Cancer Awareness Month

November marks Lung Cancer Awareness Month. Lung cancer is the third most common cancer in the United States, and cancers of the lung are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. in both men and women with more people dying of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined.

While smoking is a major risk factor for developing lung cancer, it can also affect those who have never smoked. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the U.S., about 10 to 20 percent of lung cancers (20,000-40,000 cases) happen in people who have never smoked or smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime. Exposure to secondhand smoke, radon, air pollution, asbestos and having a family history of lung cancer are all contributing risk factors.

Symptoms of lung cancer can include:

-        Frequent cough

-        Shortness of breath

-        Chest pain

-        Coughing up blood

-        Wheezing

-        Feeling tired or not well all the time

Those at high risk for developing lung cancer should ask their primary care physician about scheduling a low-dose chest CT scan. For more information about lung cancer treatment options and scheduling a low-dose chest CT scan, visit nm.org.

GENEVA, IL — October 21, 2024 —  Northwestern Medicine is teaming up with Lombard-based Valqari to test drone deliveries on the campus of Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital. The pilot-project is the first step in determining the feasibility of using drone technology for safe and efficient deliveries of specimens and medical supplies. Northwestern Medicine Delnor is among the first hospitals in the United States to trial drones for inter-site deliveries.

Lab testing capabilities vary across Northwestern Medicine’s campuses and often require blood samples to be sent to different lab locations. These deliveries affect turnaround time for results and can delay care.

“Traditionally, this type of delivery has been done through hired courier services or clinicians walking the specimens across the campus on a set schedule,” said Sylvester Dazzo, vice president of administration at Northwestern Medicine. “If proven feasible, drone delivery has the potential to create an on-demand option that doesn’t require staff to walk across campus, keeping our caregivers doing what they do best – providing world-class patient care.”   

The drones currently fly between Delnor Hospital’s south entrance and the cancer center across the street from two drone stations. It flies over the grass lawn and walkways and crosses the street and sidewalks when no people or cars are nearby. While the drone flies entirely on its own, a pilot is nearby to supervise the drone flight.

"We have a significant number of patients who require same-day blood product transfusions who have benefited from the service the drone is providing,” said Megha Shah, RN, oncology infusion charge nurse at the Delnor Cancer Center.  “It allows us to obtain our blood products outside our scheduled courier times - significantly reducing wait times for patients.”

Operations of the drone are overseen by Valqari, a recognized leader in drone deliveries headquartered just down the street from Delnor’s Geneva campus. Every morning before drone flights commence, Valqari’s team secures Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to fly for the day. No patient information is visible to the flight team at any point during the delivery process. The drones are not equipped with cameras.

“When ready for transport, hospital staff makes an on-demand delivery request with Valqari’s app notifying the flight team of an inbound package,” explained Ryan Walsh, CEO and founder of Valqari. “The package is placed in a designated locker on the nearest Valqari DronePort and is then loaded onto an elevator that attaches the package to the drone. The drone ensures the airspace is clear before taking off then flies to the designated landing station to drop it off. An FAA-certified Part 107 pilot is within line of sight that can take over the controls at all times to ensure we are always meeting the current FAA requirements."

Without drones, most deliveries on the Delnor campus are made during four scheduled courier trips each day. For an on-demand delivery, staff walk the items out of the building and across the street something that occurs 40+ times per month.

"Prior to the drones, nursing staff walked back and forth between the cancer center and hospital sometimes several times per day,” said Kristen Goldsmith, RN, oncology infusion nurse at the Delnor Cancer Center. “Having the drones make deliveries helps because it keeps me at the chairside with my patients. In the cancer center, treatment decisions are based on bloodwork, so with this on-demand option, we are able to expedite care, and the quicker turnaround time takes some stress off our patients who are anxiously awaiting their results."

Current FAA guidelines require drones to operate within a line of sight, have 20 ft radius of open space around it, and to remain on the Delnor campus. Drones cannot operate within the city of Chicago or within five miles of an airport. However, drone regulations are expected to expand in 2025 opening the opportunity to further the use of drone deliveries to other sites in the Northwestern Medicine Health Network.

“If this project continues to validate drones as a safe and quick delivery option, we’ll explore where else in the health system drones may be beneficial,” said Dazzo. “We are particularly interested in how drones can potentially improve treatment times at our rural locations by providing a fast, efficient delivery option where one doesn’t currently exist.”

For Valqari, partnerships like the one with Northwestern Medicine present an opportunity to develop and refine solutions that drive innovation and efficiency in the field of drone deliveries.

"We are grateful to be able to work towards our company mission, which is to use our technology to improve people's lives,” said Walsh. “Getting the opportunity to do that alongside such an amazing company as Northwestern Medicine to be able to improve patient treatment times is a big step in our mission. Our collective efforts are instrumental in shaping the future of drone delivery, ensuring that this transformative technology evolves to meet the demands of a dynamic landscape.”

Northwestern Medicine is committed to rapidly finding, evaluating and activating internal and external innovative solutions for challenges affecting patients and care teams today and to optimize future care delivery. The Northwestern Medicine Mansueto Innovation Institute connects innovators and collaborators to an extensive network of leaders with expertise in medicine, innovation, data, business and more within Northwestern Medicine and across the healthcare industry. To learn more, visit the Mansueto Innovation Institute website.

CHICAGO – October 13, 2024 – A Northwestern Medicine patient is celebrating one year cancer-free by running his second Chicago Marathon.

At age 60, Batbayar Tserendorj from Round Lake Beach, Ill., had been on the transplant waitlist for months. In early 2023, a liver cancer diagnosis likely caused by chronic hepatitis B and D infections left the husband, father and avid runner with a lot to process. With his medical team’s support, Tserendorj decided to move ahead with training for his first marathon.

“Running can improve cardiovascular function, which may support the body’s ability to recover from surgery,” said Northwestern Medicine transplant surgeon Juan Carlos Caicedo, MD. “After Batbayar finished radiation to shrink his liver tumor, we were supportive of him training while he waited on a match for a new liver."

“This was my chance,” said Tserendorj. “I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to run again, so I took up training for a marathon as a way to persist through the challenges I was facing.”

On Oct. 8, 2023, Tserendorj crossed the finish line of the Chicago Marathon. Nineteen days later, on Oct. 27, he returned to downtown Chicago to receive his liver transplant from the Northwestern Medicine Organ Transplant Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He calls that day his second birthday. He’s been cancer-free ever since.

“Batbayar’s entire medical team could see his drive to run the marathon, so we were happy to support his training and even happier to see him reach his goals," said Northwestern Medicine transplant hepatologist Amanda Cheung, MD. 

After his surgery, Tserendorj was determined to get back to running. With permission from his doctors, he ramped up his weekly mileage and finished the 2024 Chicago Marathon on Oct. 13.

“Like the marathon, my journey with cancer has been about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and I see that in everyone from my donor to my incredible Northwestern Medicine medical team," said Tserendorj. "Liver transplantation is not a death sentence. It’s a second chance at life.”

Born in Mongolia, Tserendorj is from a part of the world with one of the highest rates of liver cancer, as chronic infection with hepatitis B, C, and D are key factors in developing the disease. These infections are highly prevalent in the country, and since they can be transmitted from mother to child during birth, many people are exposed to the viruses early in life, leading to long-term liver damage and increased cancer risk.

Each year, more than 800,000 people are diagnosed with liver cancer throughout the world and it is the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.

A new study by Northwestern Medicine in today’s issue of JAMA Oncology suggests that using an alternative approach, a percutaneous, transperineal prostate biopsy, is as effective at detecting cancer as the transrectal approach, but without the risk of infection or need for prophylactic antibiotics.

“While the potential advantages to the transperineal approach have been suggested, high-level Category 1 evidence was limited,” said primary investigator Edward Schaeffer, MD, PhD, The Harold Binstein Professor and Chief of Urology at Northwestern Medicine. “This study shows that transperineal prostate biopsy without antibiotic prophylaxis significantly is associated with a lower risk of infection compared to transrectal biopsy with targeted prophylaxis. Our data supports a transperineal approach to prostate biopsy as a new standard of care.”

The paper reports the results of the PReclude infection EVEnts with No prophylaxis Transperineal (PREVENT), a 10-center randomized controlled trial that compares the infectious complications of clinic-based transperineal biopsy without antibiotic prophylaxis versus transrectal biopsy with targeted prophylaxis. The primary outcome of the study was infection, but researchers also considered outcomes including cancer detection, urinary retention and bleeding.

In the trial, 875 participants with suspicion for prostate cancer were randomized with 382 undergoing transperineal prostate biopsy without antibiotics and 370 participants undergoing transrectal biopsy with antiobiotics. Zero infections were reported in the transperineal arm compared to six, or 1.6%, transrectal biopsy infections. There was no compromise in the detection of high grade cancer with the Transperineal approach (55% vs. 52% of TP and TR biopsies)  and rates of other complications were very low and similar.

“Antibiotics are a limited, but essential resource. The more widely antibiotics are used, the less likely they will be effective in the future. With this in mind, we have a responsibility to find alternative approaches to patient care that limit risk of infection while decreasing reliance on antibiotics.” said Dr. Schaeffer, who is also a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University. “By transitioning to the transperineal approach as the primary technique to prostate biopsy, we can effectively and safely detect cancer while eliminating the need for antibiotics and improving antibiotic stewardship.”

Northwestern Medicine is consistently recognized as a national leader in urology at the forefront of research and medical advancements in prostate cancer. The Northwestern Medicine Polsky Urologic Cancer Institute of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University's prostate cancer program offers personalized, integrative and innovative care for the diagnosis, treatment and management of prostate cancer. The Prostate cancer program at NM offers a multidisciplinary access point for prostate cancer treatments, such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, as well as resources, including genetic counseling. Bolstering promising, active research while strengthening advanced tracking and diagnostic techniques, the program offers precision diagnosis and treatment, groundbreaking innovation in treatment and prevention and sustained wellness beyond diagnosis and treatment through survivorship and follow-up care services.

For more information on prostate cancer care at Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org/urology or call 833-7-POLSKY (833-776-5759) to make an appointment. To learn more about Northwestern Medicine, visit news.nm.org.

CHICAGO – May 22, 2024 – On Sunday, June 2, the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and Northwestern Medicine will welcome more than 3,000 cancer survivors and supporters back to Grant Park for the 31^st Annual Cancer Survivors’ Celebration Walk & 5K.

Held on National Cancer Survivors Day, this community event features a non-competitive walk or chip-timed 5K run along Chicago’s lakefront, T-shirts, refreshments, music and entertainment, skin cancer screenings, activities for the family and a chance to share a message on the Dedication Wall.

“There are more than 18 million people living with a history of cancer in the United States,” says Leonidas Platanias, MD, PhD, director of Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine. “Thanks to the physicians and scientists taking bold steps to detect cancer earlier and develop new therapies, that number is expected to grow. This annual event gives us the opportunity to celebrate survivors and their families and renew our commitment to defeating this devastating disease.”

The celebration is an opportunity for cancer survivors — wearing purple shirts — to connect and celebrate milestones with the friends, family members and medical professionals who have supported them along the way. The event is open to everyone whose life has been impacted by cancer, regardless of where they were treated.

The Walk route is approximately three miles, but participants are welcome to enjoy the lakefront path at their own pace and return to Grant Park’s Arvey Field (northeast corner of Columbus Drive and Roosevelt Road) whenever they choose.

Advanced registration is available online and is strongly encouraged. Runners must register for the 5K race in advance and can pick up their race bib with timing chip in Grant Park on the day of the event, starting at 8 a.m.

Day-of registration for walkers will also begin at 8 a.m. The 5K run will commence at 9:15 a.m., followed by the walk at 10:00 a.m., rain or shine.

All funds raised will directly support Lurie Cancer Center’s innovative research and survivorship programs. Fundraising is optional, and there is no minimum donation required. For more information on event activities, fundraising and registration, click here.

WHAT: 31^st Annual Cancer Survivors’ Celebration Walk & 5K 

WHEN: Sunday, June 2 (National Cancer Survivors Day)

• 8 a.m. — Event-day registration and t-shirt pick-up opens
• 8:30 a.m. — Welcome, warm-up and celebration begins
• 9:15 a.m. — 5K run starts
• 10 a.m. — Walk starts

WHERE: Grant Park’s Arvey Field, Chicago (northeast corner of Columbus Drive and Roosevelt Road)

WHO:  Cancer survivorship experts and oncologists from Lurie Cancer Center are available for interviews as well as the following cancer survivors:

• David Berwanger, a 59-year-old head and neck cancer survivor who transformed his radiation therapy masks into superheroes, funny faces and popular movie characters. David will attend this year’s walk as a “Face of Cancer” honoree.
• Mike Hlavin, a three-time cancer survivor who found out he had melanoma after getting a free skin cancer screening at the 2023 Cancer Survivors’ Celebration Walk & 5K. Since 2010, the 58-year-old has faced prostate cancer and multiple myeloma in addition to melanoma. 

CHICAGO – May 9, 2024 - When Debbie Hensley went in for her annual eye exam, her optometrist knew there was a problem with her left eye.

The 66-year-old retired schoolteacher from Kingston, Tenn., thought she might have a cataract. She was referred to a Knoxville, Tenn., retina specialist who diagnosed her with a detached retina. However, this was not the only concerning thing he found.

“I said, ‘do we want just the detached retina, or do we want something else?’” Hensley said.” He said, ‘I’d rather it only be a detached retina.’ So, I asked, ‘what is it?’ and he said, ‘you have cancer. You have melanoma of the eye that caused the retinal detachment.’ I had never even heard of eye cancer.”

After some shock at the news she had just received, she collected herself and asked the questions that she needed to ask.

“I pulled myself together and thought, you just have to do what you have to do,” Hensley said.

Ocular melanoma is uncommon and has two types. Hensley’s case was uveal melanoma, which are tumors that are found inside of the eye. This type of melanoma is very rare with only 2,500 cases per year in the United States, which equals about five patients per million.

Her tumor was caused by a freckle in the back of her eye that, over time, underwent an alteration of the genes in that tumor, resulting in a mutation that caused the melanoma. Only one in 8,000 freckles in the eye will turn into melanoma. 

“I didn’t even know I had a freckle in the back of my eye,” Hensley said. “I wanted to be unique in some way. Just not this way. The doctor in Knoxville said there is nothing I could have done differently. It just happened.”

Hensley was referred to an ocular oncologist in Chattanooga, Tenn., who recommend proton therapy to kill the cancer since her tumor was partially wrapped around the optic nerve and was irregularly shaped, which meant it would be more difficult to treat in the traditional manner.  

Only a few proton centers across the United States offer proton therapy for ocular melanoma, so she chose to come to Northwestern Medicine in Chicago and Northwestern Medicine’s Proton Center in Warrenville, Ill. In the span of just 12 days in October 2023, she went from getting a routine eye exam to traveling from eastern Tennessee to Chicago to begin treatment for the ocular melanoma. She received treatment from Chris Bowen, MD, director of ocular oncology at Northwestern Medicine.

Proton beam therapy is a type of radiation that uses protons and is good at treating tumors that wrap around the optic nerve, are large, and/or are irregularly shaped. The proton beam is very precise in treating the tumor, which reduces the amount of damage to the surrounding healthy tissue.

“Another option for treating these tumors is removal of the eye,” Dr. Bowen said. “But we didn’t want to remove the eye because we knew we could both treat this tumor effectively while keeping some vision.”

Prior to Hensley starting proton therapy with Eric Nesbit, MD, radiation oncologist at the Northwestern Medicine Proton Center, Dr. Bowen needed to perform a surgery on her eye first. In a single procedure, Dr. Bowen took a biopsy of the tumor and placed tantalum ring markers on her eye.

“In order for proton therapy to be as precise as possible, we place tantalum rings on the back surface of the eye,” Dr. Bowen said. “It’s a very small, minimally invasive surgery where we place these markers in strategic locations. Then, when doing the proton therapy, the position of the rings and MRI imaging helps us determine the exact location of the tumor so the proton beam can zone in right where it needs to go.”  

“I was not nervous,” Hensley said. “I trusted the doctors and I trusted in God. Dr. Bowen came in the morning of my surgery, checked my heart, and said, ‘your heart rate is completely normal.’ I said, ‘I am not worried. I am not scared.’ Because I have decided through all this ordeal – which was so unexpected – that I am going to each next step. Whatever comes next, that’s what you are going to do.”

Dr. Bowen then performed genetic testing on the biopsied tissue to find which mutation caused the melanoma, since different mutations have varying levels of risk of future spread to other parts of the body. He used the results to create a personalized management plan for ongoing monitoring of her case.

“Fortunately, she had a favorable prognosis,” Dr. Bowen said. “We also did next generation sequencing, which shows the specific type of mutation she had. This, too, was favorable. We take this step because, as for all ocular melanoma cases, if the cancer spreads to other parts of the body, that’s when it starts to become especially concerning.”

Hensley has now completed proton therapy and her prognosis remains good. As the tumor continues to shrink, the retinal detachment will resolve on its own. For now, no additional treatment for her eye is needed, but she will need ongoing surveillance, as anyone with any type of cancer does. Since ocular melanoma tends to spread to the liver first, her liver will be closely monitored. Most of her monitoring going forward can be done in her hometown in Tennessee with some follow-up visits to Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

 “Anybody that is thinking about not doing the treatment, please don’t do that,” Hensley said. “They are scared and worried, and it is kind of scary. For me, I turned it over to God and said, ‘you are going to have to do this. I can’t.’ I was led to Dr. Bowen and Dr. Nesbit. I could not have asked for better. I decided I have way too many reasons to live. I have nine grandkids that I want to see grow older. You live through it, and you do what you have to do.”

 May is Ocular Melanoma Awareness Month, a time to educate people about the dangers, diagnosis and treatments for eye cancer.

CHICAGO — When Michael DiLillo’s phone rang early on a Saturday morning, he was not prepared for the life-altering news awaiting him on the other end. The previous day he had undergone a series of cardiac tests and now his cardiologist was calling on the weekend.

“We were home babysitting our grandchildren when I saw he was calling. I remember him saying ‘I need to tell you something important. I hope you’re sitting down.’ That’s when I knew we were facing something serious,” recalled DiLillo, 69, a resident of St. Charles, Ill., in Chicago’s western suburbs.

For several months, DiLillo had noticed a slight tightness in his chest. He saw several physicians who told him he was going through the normal process of aging, but he wasn’t convinced.

“I was experiencing some chest issues – not severe or to the point where it limited my activity, but I knew something wasn’t quite right,” said DiLillo, who kept searching for answers. “When I got an appointment with Dr. Severino, he ordered tests and figured it out very quickly.”

When Michael J. Severino, MD, cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, called DiLillo on that Saturday morning, he informed him that the symptoms were the result of a large mass encroaching into his heart. He told his patient to head to the emergency department quickly to undergo further testing.

“When I saw the test results, I had to take a few minutes and decide how I was going to handle this because it was an earth-shattering result for the patient,” said Dr. Severino, who practices at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital and Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital. “I’ve been in practice almost 30 years and I’ve never seen this type of tumor in this location.”

The tumor was growing into and causing damage to DiLillo’s heart. Treatment would require extensive surgery to not only remove the mass, but to also repair the damage to his heart. He consulted with surgeons at multiple hospitals, but none were willing to take on the surgery because of its complexity and risk.

“No one wanted to the do the surgery because they thought it was too risky. One surgeon said, ‘I can’t tell you with a clear conscience that you’ll survive surgery,’” said DiLillo. “I was scared beyond belief. I told [my wife] Marianne that we needed to put our financial house in order. I thought I was going to die.”

That was until he got to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. DiLillo first saw Samuel S. Kim, MD, thoracic surgeon at Canning Thoracic Institute, who brought his case to the hospital’s tumor board, a multidisciplinary team of experts who meet to discuss complex cancer patient cases and determine the best treatment plan.

“The patient was running on borrowed time and surgery was his only option for survival,” explained Dr. Kim. “At Northwestern Medicine, our surgeons are known for taking on the most difficult cases and we knew we had the right team in place to help Michael.”

After discussing DiLillo’s tumor, the tumor board agreed it would require the expertise of a cardiac surgeon given the damage to the heart, which is when Christopher K. Mehta, MD, cardiac surgeon at Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, was brought into the case.

“I’ve seen a handful of these tumors, and this was by far the most aggressive appearing cancer, especially from what we could tell from the imaging and the echocardiogram,” said Dr. Mehta. “The sheer size of the tumor, which was the size of a football, was causing it to invade the structures of the heart, which made it particularly challenging to deal with.”

Despite the tumor’s size and complexity of the surgery it would require, Dr. Mehta agreed to operate, but warned DiLillo and his family that it would not come without risk.

“The tumor was invading and compressing the pulmonary valve and the pulmonary artery, which move blood from the heart to the lungs,” said Dr. Mehta. “Once we removed the entire tumor, we would then be faced with having to reconstruct the heart in a way that he could live a normal life. It was a very involved surgical case.”

The surgical team operated for 12 hours removing the entire tumor then repairing the damage it caused to the structures of his heart, including rebuilding the pulmonary valve. For DiLillo’s family, the wait was agony.

“My kids were there with me, and we were all scared. It was a rollercoaster. We had ourselves prepared that he wasn’t going to make it,” said Marianne DiLillo, Michael’s wife of 41 years. “When Dr. Mehta came out and said everything went well, we couldn’t believe it. He let us all hug him and was so positive about the surgery but told us the recovery was still going to be a long journey.”

For Dr. Mehta and team, the relief was shared especially after seeing the tumor’s true size once it was removed. The tumor weighed more than 1.5 pounds, which is more than double the weight of the average human heart.

“When we opened Michael’s chest, you couldn’t see his heart because the tumor was so massive. We all breathed a sigh of relief when this surgery was complete,” said Dr. Mehta. “Michael still had a long road ahead of him, but we gave him an opportunity to keep fighting.”

Following surgery, DiLillo remained in the intensive care unit (ICU) for five weeks then transferred to an acute rehab facility for more than two months.

“From the time we had the surgery planned until several weeks after was a blur to me,” said DiLillo. “Having Marianne by my side and making big decisions was insurmountable because I could have never been able to function on my own.”

Primary tumors of the heart are extremely rare with malignant cardiac tumors being even more uncommon. Less than 10% of all primary heart tumors are cancerous affecting approximately 8,000 people worldwide. By comparison, breast cancer impacts more than 240,000 people each year in the United States alone. When cancers do occur in and around the heart, most often the cancer started elsewhere and spread to the heart.

“When the pathologists got back to us about the type of tumor, they were very surprised to find that it was a liposarcoma, which is a rare type of cancer that starts in soft tissues,” said Dr. Mehta. “While Michael previously had a liposarcoma in his leg more than ten years earlier, the pathologist felt this was a primary tumor meaning it had started in the chest and then invaded into the heart. These represent about one percent of cancers of the heart, so it’s a very rare diagnosis.”

While DiLillo’s recovery has been long and challenging, he continues to grow stronger every day and recently enjoyed celebrating his first Christmas since the surgery with Marianne, their three grown children and their spouses and five grandchildren with number six on the way in March.

“You get a whole new perspective in how important every day is – you don’t want to waste time, you don’t know how much time you have,” said DiLillo when reflecting on the surgery and his recovery. “I have a second lease on life. I feel blessed that we found the right people who could help us. Dr. Severino found it when others said I was fine. Dr. Mehta took it on when others said, ‘I can’t help you.’ Northwestern saved my life.”

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In the United States, breast cancer incidence in Hispanic women is 28 percent lower than in non-Hispanic white women, who have the highest incidence rate. Despite these lower occurrence rates, Hispanic women are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer and have a 30 percent higher mortality rate highlighting the significant health disparities this population faces when it comes to accessing high-quality breast cancer care and screening.  

“What we see in the Hispanic community is that the women are being diagnosed at later stages, even though their diagnosis tends to be at a younger age,” says Claudia Tellez, MD, a medical oncologist at Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine. “And because they’re being diagnosed at a later stage, their cancers are generally more aggressive, and the prognosis is less favorable.” 

Dr. Tellez is working to change this by breaking down barriers and providing Chicago’s Hispanic women with better access to breast cancer screening, treatment and research with the recently launched Lurie Cancer Center Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.  

“Many Hispanic women in Chicago struggle to access care or are not receiving the highest standard of care because of language barriers, financial limitations and other factors,” says Dr. Tellez, medical director of the new clinic. “Our team is dedicated to addressing these disparities and improving access by providing culturally sensitive care, bilingual support, and educational resources tailored to the needs of Hispanic patients.”  

Led by Dr. Tellez, who is a native of Colombia, the Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic offers personalized care from a multidisciplinary team of breast cancer experts, supportive care specialists and administrative staff who all speak Spanish. The core clinic team includes a physician, nurse, medical assistant, social worker and research assistant.  

“Getting a breast cancer diagnosis is scary and overwhelming – even more so when you can’t access care in your preferred language,” says Dr. Tellez. “Patients who come to us can expect a safe and welcoming environment where each person they encounter – starting from their first phone call through their treatment – will speak Spanish. We want every patient to be confident in her treatment plan and feel comfortable communicating with a care team that embraces her culture and speaks her preferred language.”  

One of Dr. Tellez’s goals with the new clinic is to increase the number of Hispanic patients participating in clinical trials for breast cancer, an area where they are consistently underrepresented.  

“Breast cancer patients that are Hispanic represent about a third in the city of Chicago. A third of the patients that we’re seeing for clinical trials should be Hispanic,” says Dr. Tellez “And yet, we see less than 10 percent Hispanic patients participating in clinical trials in the city of Chicago. And for pharmaceutical company trials, it’s even lower at around 2.5 percent.” 

In addition to often being diagnosed younger and with later stage cancers, Hispanic women are at higher-risk for triple-negative breast cancer and HER-2 positive breast cancer, aggressive subtypes of the disease that require a targeted, specific treatment plan.  

“There are distinctive features about Hispanic women with breast cancer. For instance, they have subtypes of breast cancer that are unique, and we need to be aware of that and treat them accordingly,” says Dr. Tellez. “Participation in clinical trials often means access to new drugs or treatments that aren’t available otherwise. More participation and representation also create an opportunity for clinical trials that are very specific to those subtypes, such as triple negative, and can help improve treatments for the disease.”       

Community outreach and partnerships with Hispanic health advocates will be an important element to the success of the new Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic.  

 “We’re working with community groups and health advocates who are known and trusted in the community. Together, we want to ensure that Hispanic women are knowledgeable about the importance of regular screenings and early detection,” says Dr. Tellez. “And if they need care, we’re here and ready to help. Our goal is to ensure that every patient who walks through our door has the information, education and resources needed for the best possible outcome in their breast cancer journey,”  

On Saturday, October 28, Dr. Tellez will participate in Lurie Cancer Center’s annual Breast Cancer Community Forum for Hispanic women. The event will feature educational presentations in Spanish about breast cancer, followed by an interactive discussion with a panel of experts who will answer questions about treatments, surgeries, as well as the emotions and challenges faced by cancer survivors. The event is free and open to the public. Register online: Foro Comunitario Sobre Cáncer de Seno.  

To schedule an appointment with the Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic, call our Spanish-speaking patient liaison at 312.472.0805 (TTY: 711) or visit the clinic's website in Spanish or English.

B-ROLL, SOUNDBITES & PHOTOS: Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic - Dropbox 

VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL DEL COMUNICADO DE PRENSA: El Centro Oncológico Lurie lanza una clínica hispana de cáncer de mama en el Northwestern Memorial Hospital
 
For more information about Northwestern Medicine, visit https://news.nm.org/.  

Taking place on June 4, National Cancer Survivors Day, this community event is a unique opportunity for cancer survivors, supporters, scientists and health professionals to connect, celebrate milestones and make an impact on the future of cancer care.

“At Lurie Cancer Center, we strive to bring personalized cancer care and state-of-the-art treatments to patients with the goal of celebrating more cancer survivors every year,” says Leonidas Platanias, MD, PhD, director of Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine. “This community event is a meaningful opportunity to renew our commitment to defeating this terrible disease and improving quality of life for patients and their families. This year, we are particularly excited to commemorate three decades of progress.”

The celebration is open to all cancer survivors, regardless of where they were treated. Participants can sign up for a non-competitive walk or chip-timed 5K race along the lakefront. The event will feature several highlights including special 30th-anniversary T-shirts designed by Faces of Cancer honoree Valerie Jonkoff, music and entertainment, inspiring speakers, refreshments and an opportunity to share a message on the Dedication Wall.

New this year, participants have the option to purchase and personalize a star with the name of a loved one. These stars will be displayed together in a ‘star field,’ symbolizing everyone impacted by cancer and providing hope to those currently undergoing treatment.

Advanced registration is available online and highly encouraged. Runners can pick up their racing bib with timing chip in Grant Park on the day of the event, starting at 8 a.m. The 5K run will commence at 9:15 a.m., followed by the walk at 10 a.m., rain or shine.

All funds raised will directly support Lurie Cancer Center’s innovative research and survivorship programs. Fundraising is optional, and there is no minimum donation required. For more information on event activities, fundraising and registration, visit cancer.northwestern.edu/walk.

WHAT: 30^th Annual Cancer Survivors’ Celebration Walk & 5K 

WHEN: Sunday, June 4 (National Cancer Survivors Day)

• 8 a.m. -Event-day registration and t-shirt pick-up opens
• 8:30 a.m. -Welcome, warm-up and celebration begins
• 9:15 a.m. -5K run starts
• 10 a.m. -Walk starts

WHERE: Grant Park’s Arvey Field, Chicago 

WHO:  Cancer survivorship experts and oncologists from Lurie Cancer Center are available for interviews, as well as the following 2023 Faces of Cancer honorees:

• Valerie Jonkoff, a 34-year-old rectal cancer survivor who can speak to the unique challenges of adolescent-young adult (AYA) cancer care. Jonkoff has also designed the t-shirts for this year’s celebration.
• Candace Henley is a colorectal cancer survivor who founded The Blue Hat Foundation for Colorectal Cancer Awareness, an organization committed to supporting underserved community members without access to cancer prevention resources.
• Laura Hendricks, an acute myeloid leukemia survivor, was diagnosed five years ago at age 40 while raising three young children. After completing treatment, Hendricks founded Luminaries, an organization that delivers step-by-step toolkits to help cancer survivors respond to challenges and thrive.

EVENT B-ROLL: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/htkb9f8y73ykn9vq10in9/h?dl=0&rlkey=w4lazyyz12bhh2ikt63j16gcs

Orland Park, Ill. – The National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC), a quality program administered by the American College of Surgeons (ACS), has granted accredited status to Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital and the Northwestern Medicine Breast Health Program in Orland Park. To achieve NAPBC accreditation, a breast center demonstrates compliance with the NAPBC standards addressing leadership, clinical services, research, community outreach, professional education, and quality improvement for patients. Breast centers seeking NAPBC accreditation undergo a site visit every three years.

“We are thrilled to be recognized by the NAPBC with this accreditation,” said Miraj Shah-Khan, MD, medical director of the breast cancer program at Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital. “At Palos Hospital, we strive to provide patients with exceptional comprehensive breast cancer care from the moment they walk through the door.”

As a NAPBC-accredited center, Palos Hospital and the Breast Health Program are committed to maintaining levels of excellence in the delivery of comprehensive, patient-centered care for patients with breast disease. Patients can be confident their breast care team includes health care professionals from a variety of disciplines who are committed to working together to provide the highest quality care available through their entire course of treatment.

The NAPBC provides the structure and resources to develop and operate a high-quality breast center and accredited program. Patients receiving care through the Palos Hospital and the Breast Health Program have access to:

• Comprehensive breast cancer screening, including three-dimensional (3D) mammography, breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and automated breast ultrasound (ABUS)
• A multidisciplinary team of breast cancer experts who provide a full range of state-of-the-art services and leading-edge treatments
• Access to clinical trials, patient navigation support, supportive oncology services, genetic counseling, and novel treatment options  
• High-risk breast clinic, providing comprehensive risk assessment and surveillance strategies for patients at elevated breast cancer risk

About the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers

The National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers represents a consortium of national, professional organizations dedicated to the quality of care of patients with diseases of the breast. Its board membership includes professionals from more than 20 national organizations that represent the full spectrum of breast care.  For more information, visit https://www.facs.org/quality-programs/napbc.

To learn more about Northwestern Medicine, visit nm.org.

CHICAGO -  When Erika Aleman began training for marathons in 2015, she struggled to embrace her running coach’s mantra: “Take it one mile at a time.”

New to running, all she could think about was crossing the finish line.

“I was frustrated, but my coach was right. When I focused on the finish, I was overwhelmed,” says Erika, now 43-years-old, who saw her times improve and her love of running grow as she changed her approach.

Now, seven years later, Erika is again turning to that philosophy, but this time for a different type of challenge – to guide her through treatment for breast cancer.

On Sunday, October 9, Erika completed the Chicago Marathon, a race she trained for through 16 rounds of neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy. On Friday, October 14, just five days after the marathon, she underwent a bilateral mastectomy for stage II triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). 

“When I was diagnosed, I felt like I lost control of my life,” says Erika of her diagnosis. “I didn’t understand how this could happen. Everything went dark for me.”

Scared for her life and what the diagnosis meant for her two daughters, Erika also worried she would have to stop running, something that had become her personal form of therapy.

“Running is my ‘me time’ and the place where I can be in my own head,” she says. “Any trouble in my life, I’d grab my shoes and head outside. I couldn’t lose that, not now.”

Erika sought treatment at the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine where she met oncologist Regina Stein, MD, who supported her in continuing to run and remaining active.

“In our first appointment, Dr. Stein told me, ‘You will see the light at the end of the tunnel,’ and then she said it was okay to run,” said Erika. “That’s when I promised myself that I would survive this. Dr. Stein gave me hope when I needed it.”

Recalling their first meeting, Dr. Stein remembers her patient’s initial fear, but then that fear turned into a resolve to beat cancer. “I outlined what treatment she would need to achieve the goal of curing her cancer. Erika very confidently said a phrase in Spanish that I know very well. She said ‘así será,’ which means ‘that is what it will be.’ It’s a promise,” says Dr. Stein. “When she said that, I knew not just what we were trying to achieve, but that it would happen.” 

As her treatment progressed, Erika never stopped running or training. When it came time to schedule surgery, Erika had a surprising request – could she have her procedure after she ran the Chicago Marathon? Erika’s care team came up with a treatment plan that had the best odds of eradicating the cancer but was timed so she could still train and run the marathon without disrupting the necessary timeline. 

Erika says she relied on her faith, her family and her running to carry her through chemo and immunotherapy. And she never forgot her coach’s earlier words: Trust the process, take it one step at a time.

“I had to focus on what I could control and that was my running,” says Erika. “On the days I couldn’t run, then I would walk. Sometimes, I would only be able to walk around my living room, but I did it. I never stopped.”

Throughout treatment, Erika has relied on the support of her two daughters, Abby (16) and Marcia (21), who she calls her biggest cheerleaders and the reason she originally began running.

“I started running to prove to my daughters that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to,” says Erika, who is a single mom. “I told myself I would survive this for them. I am strong for my daughters, so they don’t have to worry about this.”  

At the marathon, Dr. Stein was excited to be along the course, cheering on the patient she calls an inspiration. 

“We can often think we’re running away from something, but Erika was running toward something,” says Dr. Stein. “She was running towards her cure, towards her life, towards her family. She was running towards the end of this, and she has run faster and stronger with each cycle.”

Reflecting on what was her 13^th marathon, Erika says yesterday’s race was her slowest, but also her most important.

“Life will punch you in the gut, but it doesn’t mean you should stop breathing,” says Erika. “You don’t get to pick and choose what happens to you, but you get to choose how to respond. I chose life, I chose to fight, I chose to embrace my reality and to keep going forward with my head held high. Yesterday, I ran THE BEST MARATHON OF my life.”

Six days following her surgery, Erika got the phone call she been waiting for since her cancer diagnosis: “Dr. Stein called me and told me I’m cancer-free. What’s better than that? We need to celebrate life. I’m a lucky one.”

CHICAGO, IL -  At 34-years-old, firefighter Frank Nunez has spent the past few days saying his final goodbyes from a hospital room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

In 2019, after experiencing pain in his left leg, Frank was diagnosed with a rare form of soft tissue cancer called synovial sarcoma. Frank was treated with chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, and went into remission.

But in 2021, the cancer returned in his left lung. Frank participated in several clinical trials, and during his treatment he never stopped working at the Itasca Fire Protection District in Itasca, Illinois. 

Frank loved being a firefighter and had an incredibly strong work ethic. He started his career in 2014 and joined the Itasca Fire Protection District in 2018. Frank responded to fire alarms and medical emergencies and participated in fire prevention and training. He recently finished a fire inspector training class before being admitted to Northwestern Memorial in late September with terminal cancer.

During this hospitalization, Frank’s fellow firefighters have never left his side, rotating visits every day. Because Frank is intubated, the team communicates with Frank via text messages and dry erase boards. When asked to describe Frank, his colleagues told him:

• They wish they could have his personality
• He was admired
• A warrior
• Intelligent
• An incredible human

On Wednesday, Sept. 21, Frank celebrated his 34^th birthday with a commitment ceremony to his fiancé, Christina, inside his hospital room at Northwestern Memorial. Frank and Christina, who live in Crystal Lake, Illinois, met two months before Frank was diagnosed with cancer in 2019. From the moment they started dating, Frank knew Christina was “the one.” They got engaged in June 2022, and share a dog, Max, who still waits by the door for Frank to come home.

“All of my patients are absolutely wonderful, but every so often we get these phenomenal people like Frank who you just know would walk in a room and light up the room and make everyone feel safe,” said Khalilah Gates, MD, pulmonary and critical care specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “To provide care for Frank means a lot.”

“When you talk about someone who is dedicated and loves life, you're talking about Frank,” said Itasca Fire Chief Jack Schneidwind. “He has not missed a day and always came in with a great attitude wanting to make a difference to the people that we serve. When you talk about somebody who looked forward to living each day, that was Frank.”

Frank continues to provide counsel to other loved ones battling cancer – including his own mother, who just received a stem cell transplant for leukemia at Northwestern Memorial. Frank’s mother was able to visit him in the Medical Intensive Care Unit where the two shared their final goodbyes via messages on the dry erase board.

On Tuesday, Sept. 27, Frank went home on hospice care with a special escort. Itasca firefighters transported Frank in the very same ambulance he once used to transport patients. Members of the Chicago Fire Department were also there to salute Frank as he was lifted into the ambulance. As a first responder, Frank took his final ride home with his fellow firefighters, his fiancé, and furry friend Max – who couldn’t wait any longer for his best friend to come home. 

UPDATE: Frank died at his home on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023. 

A first-of-its-kind trial, funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a part of the National Institutes of Health, will test whether a telehealth-based intervention that addresses all three behavioral risk factors at once can modify cancer patients’ lifestyles to improve their outcomes. The trial will recruit 3,000 participants at 11 Northwestern Medicine hospitals.

Northwestern's Program for Scalable TELeheaLth Cancer CARe (STELLAR) is part of a new initiative that is funding four NCI Telehealth Cancer Research Centers of Excellence, and is supported by the Cancer Moonshot, a White House initiative first launched in 2016 and reignited by President Biden in 2022 to accelerate the rate of progress against cancer. Northwestern will receive $5.5 million in funding over five years.

“These risk behaviors are the same for most chronic diseases, which is important because many cancer patients are more likely to die from cardiovascular diseases than from their cancer,” said project leader Bonnie Spring, a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, program co-lead for cancer prevention at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine  and director of the Center for Behavior and Health at Feinberg.

Spring’s center has already developed evidence-based, technology-assisted telehealth interventions to separately treat obesity, smoking and lack of physical activity.

“Nothing like this exists,” Spring said. “Over the years, we have developed separate treatments for these risk behaviors. Now we are putting them together. That’s an efficiency. Ordinarily it would be burdensome and expensive to deliver a treatment for even one of these risk behaviors." 

The project reduces the cost of treatment by training bachelor’s-level ‘health promotionists’ to coach patients under the supervision of clinical health psychologists. Physicians and nurses don’t have time to treat these behaviors, Spring said, and even if they did, the cost would be much higher.

Patients who smoke or are obese add $124.3 million per year to the cost of cancer treatment at Northwestern Medicine, Spring said. These costs accumulate because obesity adds $3,216 per person per year to medical expenses for cancer survivors, and Northwestern’s 11 hospitals treat 27,024 patients with cancer and obesity per year. The cost of overcoming first-line treatment failures caused by smoking is $10,678 per patient, and Northwestern treats 3,500 cancer patients who smoke in a single year. 

Participants are coached remotely by telephone and trained to use an app that tracks their behaviors. They self-report their diet and smoking, stand on a Wi-Fi scale and wear a Fitbit. The data are sent to their coach electronically, so when they have a bi-weekly coaching call, the coach “is up to speed” on how the person is doing, Spring said.

“If they are not losing weight, the coach can see what is causing it,” Spring said. “What high-calorie foods are they eating? Are they eating too late at night? Are they inactive? It’s what makes the coaching very efficient and personalized."

The remote telehealth aspect is critical to success, Spring said. “That’s important because we think this may be a way to reach more underserved people who can't access treatment because they live far away, work multiple jobs, don't have reliable transportation, can't get childcare or can't get time off work.”

The data are integrated into the patient’s electronic health record, so the cancer team is kept updated.

“This enables the team of care providers to encourage the patient to make healthy behavior changes,” Spring said. “It’s giving these doctors a service they all think is valuable, but they’ve not had time or reimbursement to offer it.”

The pandemic forced most fields of health care to try telehealth, Spring said. 

“Not surprisingly (to us), telehealth treatments have generally been effective and seem to have enabled underserved patients to access care more easily,” Spring said. “Because it’s always tempting to regress back to old ways, we now need to establish a strong research evidence base about whether telehealth works for cancer care. That’s how to improve the standard of cancer care and to make it more equitable. And that’s what the four NCI Telehealth Cancer Research Centers of Excellence will do, and why they’re so important."  

STELLAR integrates Spring's obesity treatment with smoking and inactivity treatments developed by project co-leads, Brian Hitsman and Siobhan Phillips, both associate professors of preventive medicine at Northwestern. Co-lead Sofia Garcia, associate professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern, contributed procedures to incorporate a patient’s data into the electronic health record. Hitsman, Phillips and Garcia are all members of the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern.

The new cancer center offers hematology and medical oncology care, laboratory services, nutritional counseling and social work. A full-service infusion suite and specialty pharmacy provide onsite chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and supportive care. In the future, the center will also offer surgical oncology, gynecologic oncology, genetic counselors and other subspecialties. Plans are also in place to bring new cancer therapies to the south suburbs through clinical trials before these treatments become more widely available.

The Orland Park site is staffed by members and affiliates of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, ranked No. 9 in the country for Cancer by U.S. News & World Report in its 2022-2023 “America's Best Hospitals” rankings. Virtual and in-person tumor boards give Northwestern Medicine Palos physicians access to the clinical expertise of the entire Northwestern system to collaborate on complex cases and determine the best-possible treatment plan.

“We are creating a center of excellence where patients receive comprehensive cancer care in one facility to improve patient experience, care coordination and quality,” said Christopher George, MD, medical director of Northwestern Medicine’s oncology program in the south and west suburbs. “Our vision is to bring innovative, leading-edge, novel therapies from the Lurie Cancer Center to patients in the southern suburbs.”

The clinic features eight exam rooms, 13 infusion bays, a flex room, a pharmacy for compounding drugs and a laboratory for onsite diagnostic services. The physical space is easy to navigate and designed with pleasing colors and textures to provide a comfortable, calming environment.

Northwestern Medicine Cancer Center Orland Park will feature three medical oncologists. Sudhir Sekhon, MD, is joining Northwestern Medicine from Advocate Health Care in Aurora, bringing more than 15 years of experience in hematology and medical oncology to his new role. Dr. Sekhon trained at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Yaseen Alkaddoumi, MD, has practiced in the Chicago region for five years, and completed residencies at Loyola University Medical Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago Hospital. Yazan Numan, MD, assistant professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, completed his fellowship in hematology and oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

These oncologists will partner with other physicians who are making an impact on cancer care in the south suburbs, such as Imad Qayyum, MD, colorectal surgery; Samer R. Rajjoub, MD, an endocrine surgeon who focuses on thyroid cancer; and breast surgical oncologist Miraj G. Shah-Khan, MD, medical director of the Breast Cancer and Breast Health Program at Palos Hospital.

Dr. Shah-Khan completed her fellowship in breast surgical oncology at the Mayo Clinic and joined Northwestern Medicine through the 2021 Palos Health integration. She brings over 10 years of experience in academic medicine to Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital.  Dr. Shah-Khan is the chairperson of the Northwestern Medicine Palos Multidisciplinary Breast conference and the Breast Cancer Leadership committee and has taken on leadership of Northwestern Medicine Breast Cancer Collaborative, a system wide effort to improve quality and outcomes in breast cancer care across the Northwestern Medicine network. She sees patients at the Women’s Center at Northwestern Medicine Orland Park and has been leading efforts to develop a robust multidisciplinary, accredited breast program for the Orland Park community.

“It’s exciting that it is a system priority to build this space into a destination cancer center equipped with the latest diagnostic and treatment modalities, access to specialty care and clinical trials. This infrastructure, along with the expertise provided by specialists, offers everything a patient would need during their treatment,” said Dr. Shah-Khan.

Dr. Rajjoub is chairperson of the Cancer Committee at Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital, vice chairperson of the Tumor Board and the Cancer Liaison Physician.

“The opening of the Northwestern Medicine Cancer Center in Orland Park is a dream come true for the south suburbs,” said Dr. Rajjoub. “Patients in our community stand to benefit tremendously from direct access to the breadth of Northwestern Medicine’s resources, including advanced diagnostic testing, the latest treatment strategies, and new cancer therapies while remaining close to home.”

Radiation oncology services will remain at the Tinley Park location. Medical Director Haider Ali Shirazi, MD, is a radiation oncologist, chairperson of the Palos Cancer Program Tumor Board and vice chair of the Cancer Committee at Palos Hospital. Having trained at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Dr. Shirazi is excited to have rejoined an integrated academic health system in fall 2021.

“With access to Northwestern Medicine’s depth of resources, treatments, clinical trials and Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, we can better collaborate to bring world-class care to the southwest suburbs,” said Dr. Shirazi. “Many oncology subspecialties that we haven’t seen previously in our community will now be represented.”

Patients can schedule an appointment at the Northwestern Medicine Cancer Center Orland Park by calling 708.226.2318 (TTY: 711).