News

Marc Bessler, MD, Director, Minimal Access Surgery Center, and his colleagues at Columbia University Medical Center are using, testing, and refining three new methods of performing surgery that leave no external scars on the body.

Investigational procedure may make radiation therapy accessible to more women.
After undergoing a lumpectomy to remove the part of the breast affected by breast cancer, most women must undergo radiation therapy treatments. The standard course consists of six to seven weeks of therapy, five days a week. For women who live far from their radiation facilities, the burden associated with daily trips for almost two months can be too much to bear. As a result, some women have curtailed therapy, or even foregone radiation therapy altogether, despite the increased risk of their cancers recurring. A new kind of radiation therapy, Accelerated partial breast irradiation, or APBI, may now alleviate this travel burden and allow more women to complete this highly important therapy.

Esophageal cancer rates have risen 600% since 1975, with the American Cancer Society predicting that 15,560 people will be diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2007. To address this crucial public health need, physicians at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital have collaborated to create the new Esophageal Disorders Program.

In the next step beyond laparoscopic surgery, surgeons andmedical endoscopists are now working together to perform surgery without any external incisions or scars.

Dr. Craig Smith awarded the "Practitioner of the Year" award by the Society of Practitioners at Columbia University Medical Center.