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8:00AM - 4:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Pacific Ballroom A-C
Case Videos On Demand
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8:00AM - 4:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Pacific Ballroom A-C
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8:30AM - 10:30AM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Pacific Ballroom
Plenary Session I: Lung Cancer Advances: Evolving Treatment Paradigms in Operable NSCLC
David Jones, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Biography: David R. Jones, MD
Dr. Jones graduated Phi Beta Kappa from West Virginia University and received his medical degree from West Virginia University School of Medicine where he was AOA. He completed his Thoracic Surgery Residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. In 1999, Dr. Jones joined the faculty at the University of Virginia where he became Professor and Vice-Chairman of the Department. In 2013 Dr. Jones was recruited to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as Chief of Thoracic Surgery.
Dr. Jones is Professor & Chief of Thoracic Surgery and Executive Vice-chair of the Department of Surgery at MSKCC. He is also the Co-Director of the Fiona and Stanly Druckenmiller Center for Lung Cancer Research. He is the 105th Past-President of the AATS and serves as Chair of the AATS-MSKCC Thoracic Surgery Oncology Group (TSOG) for clinical trials, a cooperative clincal trial consortium sponsored by MSKCC & the AATS. He is recent past Chair of the NIH/NCI Tumor Progression and Metastasis (TPM) study section and currently serves on the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors. He serves on numerous national and international committees related to thoracic surgical research and clinical care.
Dr. Jones’s research focuses on mechanisms and drivers of metastases in lung cancer. His research has been funded by the NIH/NCI, Department of Defense, and the AACR. He has been the Principal Investigator or Co-PI on over 35 funded grants including multiple R01 awards from the NCI. He has published over 520 papers and has written over 35 book chapters. He was an early adopter of VATS anatomic resections and minimally-invasive esophagectomies and performs the majority of his operations using these minimally-invasive approaches.
John Mitchell, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center
John D. Mitchell, M.D.
Dr. Mitchell completed residency training programs in General and Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He is currently Professor and Chief of General Thoracic Surgery at the University of Colorado (USA), and holds the Courtenay C. and Lucy Patten Davis Endowed Chair within the Department of Surgery. He also serves as a Consultant at National Jewish Health in Denver. His clinical and research interests include the treatment of thoracic malignancies, surgery for infectious lung disease, airway surgery, and minimally invasive thoracic surgery. Dr. Mitchell is active in numerous national and international thoracic surgical societies, including his current roles as the Vice-Chair of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and Treasurer of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
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10:30AM - 10:45AM EDT
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10:45AM - 12:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Atlantic Ballroom 1
Concurrent Session A: Multidisciplinary Therapeutic Strategies in Operable Esophageal Cancer
Stephanie Worrell, University of Arizona
Stephanie G. Worrell, MD, FACS, is an associate professor and section chief of Thoracic surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic surgery. Dr. Worrell completed her fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Michigan and her residency in general surgery at the University of Southern California.
Jon Wee, Brigham & Women's Hospital
Dr. Jon Wee is the Esophageal Surgery Section Chief, Director of Robotics in Thoracic Surgery, and co-Director of Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is also an Associate Program Director for Thoracic Surgery and is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Wee received his medical degree from the Duke University School of Medicine and completed his surgical training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He then went on to complete his cardiothoracic surgery training at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He is board certified in surgery and thoracic surgery.
Dr. Wee’s clinical interest is in minimally invasive approaches to thoracic diseases. These include minimally invasive and robotic esophagectomy, lobectomy, thymectomy and mediastinal resection for thoracic malignancies. In addition, he treats benign esophageal disease such as gastro-esophageal reflux disease, giant paraesophageal hernias, diverticulum, etc. He performs POEM procedures for achalasia as well as sympathectomy for hyperhidrosis and endoluminal therapies such as PDT, laser, and stents for palliation. His research interest is in the use of minimally invasive techniques to decrease pain, improve recovery, and improve ultimate outcomes.
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10:45AM - 12:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Pacific Ballroom
Concurrent Session B: Pathology & Risk Assessment in NSCLC
James Isbell, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
James M. Isbell, MD, MSCI completed his medical degree at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, his general surgery residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, his cardiothoracic training at the University of Virginia and surgical critical care training at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins. Dr. Isbell is an Associate Professor with dual appointments in the Department of Surgery and the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY. In addition to his active thoracic surgical practice, he occasionally attends in MSK's ICU and enjoys clinical and translational research. Dr. Isbell leads multiple clinical trials in thoracic oncology. His translational research is focused on the use of liquid biopsy in the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of lung cancer. He leads an AATS-TSOG-sponsored multicenter study evaluating the predictive and prognositc value of longitudinally monitoring ctDNA levels in patients undergoing neoadjuvant therapy followed by surgical resection for non-small cell lung cancer. He serves as the Director of Quality and Outcomes for the MSK Thoracic Surgery Service, Co-Director of the MSK's Thoracic Liquid Biopsy Progam and Director of MSK's Step-Down Units. He also currently serves as a member of the AATS Thoracic Quality Committee.
Jane Yanagawa, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Yanagawa is a Professor of Thoracic Surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is a vital member of the UCLA Thoracic Oncology Program Tumor Board as well as the UCLA Sarcoma Tumor Board, and has developed a thriving clinical practice in thoracic surgical oncology. She also represents UCLA as a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines panel for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer/Mesothelioma/Thymomas and Thymic Malignancies. She performs translational lung cancer research as a principal investigator with a laboratory on campus, and is a dedicated educator who has garnered multiple teaching awards and is the program director for the UCLA general surgery residency.
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10:45AM - 12:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Atlantic Ballroom 2-3
Concurrent Session C - Diagnosis and Staging in NSCLC
Elliot Servais, Lahey Hospital and Medical Center
Dr. Servais is a general thoracic surgeon and Section Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center. He is Vice Chair for Quality in the Department of Surgery and the Director of the Robotic Thoracic Surgery program at Lahey. Dr. Servais trained in general surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital – Cornell Medical Center, thoracic oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and clinical thoracic surgery at Brigham & Women’s Hospital – Harvard Medical School. Dr. Servais is board certified in both general and thoracic surgery. Dr. Servais has broad expertise in diseases of the chest and abdomen. He has particular expertise and research interest in the use of robotic surgery and other minimally invasive and advanced endoscopic techniques for lung and esophageal diseases as well as CT lung cancer screening.
Mark Onaitis, University of California San Diego
Mark Onaitis is Professor of Surgery and the Sheri Kelts Chair in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of California, San Diego.
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12:00PM - 12:30PM EDT
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12:30PM - 1:15PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Atlantic Ballroom 1
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12:30PM - 1:15PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Atlantic Ballroom 2-3
Industry Lunch Symposium: A Treatment Option for Certain Patients With Resectable Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) | Sponsored by Merck & Co., Inc. (non-CME)
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1:15PM - 1:45PM EDT
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1:45PM - 3:15PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Pacific Ballroom
Concurrent Session D: Technical Aspects of Lung Cancer Resections
Scott Swanson, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Dr. Scott J. Swanson is a thoracic surgeon and director of Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is associate chief of surgery at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center and is a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Swanson received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed his general and cardiothoracic surgical residencies at the Brigham. He completed a fellowship in vascular biology at Harvard Medical School and a thoracic oncology fellowship at the Brigham. Dr. Swanson is board certified in surgery and thoracic surgery. He has been listed as one of America’s Top Doctors by Castle Connolly and named a top thoracic surgeon by Boston Magazine.
Dr. Swanson’s clinical interests include minimally invasive thoracic surgery and lung cancer. His research is focused on better understanding early stage lung cancer, its biologic fingerprint and clinical behavior.
Walter Weder, Thoraxchirurgie Bethanien
Walter Weder is Professor of Surgery and former Director of the Department of Thoracic Surgery at the University Hospital Zurich (USZ), Switzerland. Currently he works at Thoracic Surgery Clinic Bethanien, Zuerich. He was educated at the Medical School of the University of Zurich and at Stanford University, graduated in Zürich and became a thoracic surgeon after his surgical training at USZ and a Research Fellowship in Lung Transplantation at Washington University (Joel D. Cooper), St. Louis, U.S.
He is member of many national and international medical societies, including AATS, ESTS, IASLC, EACTS, ESMO, STS, ISHLT and ERS.
Professor Walter Weder is also the founding president of the Swiss Society of Thoracic Surgery, the Lung transplant group of Swisstransplant and the former president of the European Society of Thoracic Surgery (ESTS) and board member of ETOP. He was visiting professor of Harvard Boston, MSKCC in NYC and Shanghai chest hospital.
In 1992, Professor Walter Weder performed the first lung transplantation in Switzerland and in 1994 the first thoracoscopic lung volume reduction procedure worldwide. In 2004, he started a robotic surgery program for mediastinal disease and lung cancer. Over the years, his research activity focused on thoracic malignancies, especially malignant mesothelioma and locally advanced lung cancer, as well as emphysema surgery and lungtransplantation.
He is an author of over 500 peer-reviewed scientific publications. -
1:45PM - 3:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Atlantic Ballroom 1
Concurrent Session E: Update on Clinical Trials in Thoracic Oncologic Surgery
David Harpole, Duke University
David H. Harpole, Jr. is a Professor of Surgery and Pathology at the Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he serves as Director of the Duke Surgical Research Fellowship and leads Duke’s Lung Cancer Research Laboratory and Biorepository.
Dr. Harpole has served in the Department of Surgery and Division of Thoracic Surgery for the past 20+ years; as Vice-chairman for Faculty Affairs, Vice-chief of The Division of Surgical Sciences and Vice Chairman for Research. He was the Co-chair of the Thoracic Tumor Committee of the National Cancer Database and recently retired as a Director of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and completed his role as a Board of Director of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. He was conference president of 2021 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC).
Dr. Harpole has contributed numerous articles (> 200) and abstracts to the medical literature. His work on non-small cell lung cancer, esophageal carcinoma and mesothelioma. He has directed an active translational thoracic oncology research laboratory for more 25 years that has had National Institutes of Health, Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense peer reviewed grant support and has served on NCI and VA grant review study sections for more than 15 years, including chair of the NCI R03, R21, R33 grant review study section for the last 5 years. He has led several large multi-institutional lung cancer clinical trials based on his laboratory efforts. Over the last 8 years, he was the co-chair of the NCI-CTEP Thoracic Malignancies Steering Committee that oversees all large clinical trials in lung cancer and mesothelioma in the US and Canada.Over the last two+ decades, he has trained and mentored more than 20 research fellows who hold academic positions across the US and Canada. Currently, he is the PI of three NIH-funded training grants (NCI T32, NHLBI R38 and NIAID R38).
Nasser Altorki, New York Presbyterian
Chief Division of Thoracic Surgery
Leader Experimental Therapeutics Program at Meyer Cancer Center of Weill Cornell Mediicine
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1:45PM - 3:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Atlantic Ballroom 2-3
Concurrent Session F: Rapid Fire Orals I
Stephen Broderick, Johns Hopkins Hospital
Dr. Stephen R. Broderick MD, MPHS is a thoracic surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and Sibley Memorial Hospital. After graduation from the Georgetown University School of Medicine he completed a residency in general surgery at the Weill Cornell New York Presbyterian Hospital. During residency he dedicated two years to thoracic oncology research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His work at MSKCC focused on DNA copy number and gene expression changes in lung adenocarcinoma and was included in The Cancer Genome Atlas. Following residency he completed a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr Broderick’s academic interests include thoracic surgery clinical outcomes and perioperative applications of systemic therapy for NSCLC. His clinical interests include thoracic surgical oncology as well as the breadth of benign conditions of the chest and foregut.
Betty Tong, Duke University
Betty C. Tong, MD, MHS is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, USA. Her clinical interests are in lung cancer screening, surgical management of thoracic malignancies such as lung cancer and soft tissue sarcoma of the chest, and video assisted thoracic surgery. Her research interests are centered in the area of health services research, and include the study of disparities in thoracic surgical patients, and patient preferences and decision making in the management of thoracic disease.
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3:15PM - 3:30PM EDT
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3:30PM - 5:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Pacific Ballroom
Concurrent Session G: Mediastinal Tumors
James Huang, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
James Huang, MD is a thoracic surgeon on the faculty at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. Dr. Huang completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard University and obtained his medical degree at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Following a general surgery residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, he completed his fellowship training in cardiothoracic surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering and New York Presbyterian Hospital, and obtained a Master’s degree at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia. Dr. Huang’s research interests include lung cancer, thymic malignancies, and outcomes in thoracic surgery. He currently serves as Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator in a number of clinical trials involving oligometastatic lung cancer, multifocal ground glass opacities, multimodality therapy in thymic malignancies, and exercise in lung cancer survivors. Dr. Huang is a member of the Staging and Prognostic Factors Committee of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) and serves as the Chair of the N-descriptors Subcommittee for Lung Cancer, and the Vice Chair of the Thymic Malignancies Staging Committee. He also has a strong interest in surgical education and serves as the Program Director for the Thoracic Surgery Fellowship program, and the Associate Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Shaf Keshavjee, University Health Network
Dr. Shaf Keshavjee completed his medical training at the University of Toronto in 1985, and subsequently trained in General Surgery, Cardiac Surgery and Thoracic Surgery at the University of Toronto followed by fellowship training at Harvard University and the University of London for airway surgery and heart-lung transplantation, respectively. He leads a team whose studies in transplantation have had a significant impact on treatment outcomes for patients with lung disease around the world. Dr. Keshavjee is currently Chief of Innovation at University Health Network, University of Toronto.
An integral part of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at UHN, Dr. Keshavjee has taken on leadership roles in all facets of this specialized area of care: as a skilled surgeon and Director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program; and as a researcher and Director of the Latner Thoracic Research Laboratories. To improve lung function after transplantation, he developed a lung preservation solution to preserve donor lungs for transplant. This solution has become the standard technique used by transplantation programs around the world. Dr.Keshavjee has further attracted worldwide attention for his pioneering research to recondition and repair injured human donor lungs using gene and cell therapies and the Toronto Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion System, making them suitable for transplantation into patients and enhancing the number of donor lungs available.
Dr. Keshavjee has served on the Board of Directors of the ISHLT and the Canadian Society of Transplantation. He has served as a Member of the Board, Treasurer and then the 102nd President of the AATS. He has received numerous awards and honorary fellowships for his continuing contributions to his field, including several lifetime achievement awards. Dr. Keshavjee has recieved several honorary doctoral degrees, the Order of Ontario, and Canada's highest civilian honor as Officer of the Order of Canada for his contributions to medicine.
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3:30PM - 5:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Atlantic Ballroom 1
Concurrent Session H: Advances in Multi-Disciplinary Management of Pleural Malignancies (non-CME)
David Schrump, National Cancer Institute
Dr. David Schrump is Senior Investigator and Chief, Thoracic Surgery Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute. In addition to his clinical responsibilities, he overseas a translational research program focused on epigenetic mechanisms of gene expression in thoracic malignancies and the development of epigenetic therapies for these neoplasms.
Robert Ripley, Baylor College of Medicine
R. Taylor Ripley, M.D., is a thoracic surgical oncologist and board-certified general thoracic surgeon. He is the Meyer-DeBakey Chair of Investigative Research and a Tenure-Professor of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He earned his medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, trained in thoracic surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and in general Surgery at the University of Colorado. He specializes in robotic thoracic surgery and in thoracic surgical oncology with an emphasis on mesothelioma, lung cancer, and esophageal cancer. Dr. Ripley leads an R01-funded laboratory that focuses on the metabolically reprogram mesothelioma, esophageal cancer, and lung cancer to enhace the vulnerable to therapy. Dr. Ripley has lectured nationally and published extensively on his work in the field of thoracic oncology and tumor metabolism.
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3:30PM - 5:00PM EDT Renaissance Boston Seaport District, Atlantic Ballroom 2-3
Concurrent Session I: Innovation Workshop: What's Coming Down the Pipeline (non-CME)
Shanda Blackmon, Baylor College of Medicine-Michael DeBakey Dept of Surgery
Shanda H. Blackmon, M.D., M.P.H., FACS is a minimally invasive thoracic surgeon and is the current Olga Keith Weiss Endowed Chair in Surgery, Executive Director of the Baylor College of Medicine Lung Institute, and is a tenured Professor at Baylor College of Medicine. She completed Cardiothoracic Surgery Residency at Baylor College of Medicine in 2005 and was awarded the Clinical Instructorship in thoracic surgical oncology at MDACC, until she was recruited to lead the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Houston Methodist, where she served as Chief of Thoracic Surgery for eight years. She has led esophageal support groups for 17 years. She was recruited to Mayo Clinic- Rochester. She holds several patents for novel technology, developed the UDD App, which is a virtual patient management platform for foregut surgery patients, developed a complex esophageal reconstruction program, is a Surgery Champion for 3D anatomic modeling and was the Medical Director of Mayo Clinic Consumer Platforms as well as Medical Director for User Experience within Mayo's Center for Digital Health. She is Board-certified by ABS & ABTS. She serves(d) on the following boards or councils: WTS, STSA, CTSnet, TSF, STS, & ATS. She leads innovation programs for AATS. Dr. Blackmon has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, given over 500 oral presentations, is internationally recognized, has published more than 100 instructional videos(@ShandaBlackmon for Twitter & https://www.youtube.com/c/ShandaBlackmon/videos). She is a former Deputy Editor for The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. She is the Past-President of Women in Thoracic Surgery, former Secretary/Treasurer of TSF, President-elect for STSA (2026-2027) and was Council Chair & Board of Directors for STS. She is the author of "The Support Group" by Mayo Clinic Press. She is married to Matt Blackmon and has three children Jake (20), Sam (20), and Grace (12).
Inderpal Sarkaria, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Inderpal (Netu) S. Sarkaria, MD, MBA, FACS Professor and Chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery in the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He holds the Robert Tucker Hayes Distinguished Chair in Cardiothoracic Surgery. His research interests include clinical trials in lung and esophageal cancer, cancer genomics, and technological advances involving aspects of robotic surgery, intraoperative imaging technologies, and efficienceis in healthcare operations.
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5:00PM - 6:30PM EDT
Welcome Reception and Poster Viewing