Breastcancer.org Podcast

Brian Wojciechowski, M.D., practices medical oncology in Delaware County, Pennsylvania at Riddle, Taylor, and Crozer hospitals and also serves as Breastcancer.org's medical adviser. He is a sought-after speaker on the topics of medical ethics and the biology of cancer. Medical and oncology organizations disagree on the value of breast self-exam. The American Cancer Society, for example, doesn’t re...

Dr. Hana El Sahly is associate professor of molecular virology and microbiology in the Vaccine and Treatment and Evaluation Unit at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Dr. El Sahly is the chairperson of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the committee that makes vaccine recommendations to the FDA, and was also the lead in...

Marcia Beck is a clinical nurse specialist at the University of Kansas Health System. Marcia is certified in adult health and breast health and also certified as a lymphedema therapist by the Lymphology Association of North America. Listen to the episode to hear Marcia explain all aspects of lymphedema, including: what lymphedema is and where it can develop risk factors for lymphedema how lymphede...

Brian Wojciechowski, M.D., practices medical oncology in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, at Riddle, Taylor, and Crozer hospitals and also serves as Breastcancer.org's medical adviser. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control have recommended that use of the Johnson & Johnson-Janssen COVID-19 vaccine be paused because six cases of what’s called cerebral venous sinus...

Joanna Fawzy Morales is a cancer rights attorney, author, speaker, and CEO of Triage Cancer, a national nonprofit organization providing free education on the legal and practical issues that may affect people diagnosed with cancer and their caregivers. Joanna has spent more than 27 years working on behalf of people with cancer, including 5 as an adjunct professor of law at Loyola Law School, teach...

Dr. Steven Isakoff is a medical oncologist who serves as associate director for clinical research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and also as director of the Mass General Scalp Cooling Program and the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Program. He is also an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Listen to the podcast to hear Dr. Isakoff explain what scalp coolin...

Dr. Halle Moore is director of breast medical oncology and co-director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Program at the Cleveland Clinic. Her research focuses on breast cancer treatment and issues related to cancer survivorship. Since the first COVID-19 vaccines were approved, she has been advising people diagnosed with cancer about what they need to know about being vaccinated. In this episode,...

Dr. Jennifer Litton is a board-certified medical oncologist and professor of breast medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, where she is vice president of clinical research. She also is a member of the Breast Immuno-Oncology Task Force of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Litton joins us for this episode to talk about the side effects that may be caus...

Dr. Deanna Attai is associate clinical professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Attai was an early adopter of social media for professional and patient education. She serves as the social media editor for the Journal of Oncology Practice and is a member of the Annals of Surgical Oncology editorial board. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology S...

Dr. Neil Iyengar is a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center whose practice focuses on people with breast cancer. His research is looking at the links between metabolic health and cancer, specifically looking at how diet, exercise, and medicines can prevent cancers tied to obesity, such as breast cancer, and improve outcomes for people with inflammation in fatty tissues. List...

Dr. Reshma Jagsi is the Newman Family Professor and deputy chair of the department of radiation oncology and director of the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan. At the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, she presented results from a study looking at how well doctors recognized radiation treatment side effects among people treated for breast can...

Fertility after breast cancer treatment is an important issue for many, many younger women diagnosed with breast cancer. At the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, research was presented showing that while breast cancer survivors of child-bearing age are less likely to get pregnant than the average woman, most have healthy babies and pregnancy has no effect on their long-term survival. Dr. M...

Dr. Jenni Sheng is assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Sheng mainly treats people diagnosed with breast cancer and helps them live with, through, and beyond cancer by working with her patients to create the best treatment plans and manage any side effects treatment may cause. Dr. Sheng is also a research member of GRASP — Guiding Researchers and...

Dr. Patricia Ganz is a medical oncologist who is distinguished professor of medicine as well as professor of health policy and management at UCLA. She also serves as director of the Center for Cancer Prevention and Control Research at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Ganz is a member of the Breastcancer.org Professional Advisory Board. At the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, s...

Heba Abdalla is a member of the Breastcancer.org community who was diagnosed with de novo metastatic breast cancer at age 36 when she was pregnant with her third child. Being diagnosed de novo means that the cancer was metastatic at first diagnosis. Heba has been on several different treatments, including some that are known to cause hair loss. She has used cold caps during treatment three times a...

Maura Harrigan is an oncology research registered dietitian and project manager at the Yale School of Medicine. She also serves as a registered dietitian nutritionist in the Survivorship Clinic at the Yale Cancer Center. At the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, results were presented from a study on dietary supplement use by breast cancer survivors and how these supplements may interact wi...

Dr. Chirag Shah is a radiation oncologist and director of breast radiation and clinical research in the department of radiation oncology at the Cleveland Clinic. His primary research interests are breast cancer, sarcoma, and innovative radiation treatment schedules, as well as lymphedema. He has participated in numerous clinical trials. Listen to the podcast to hear Dr. Shah explain: the differenc...

Ira Feinstein is an American author currently living in Chicago. Cut Off will be his first book. Growing up in Georgia and Michigan, Ira lived as Carla before gender transitioning at age 38. Carla lost both of her parents by age 11 — her father died unexpectedly of a heart attack and 2 years later, her mother died from breast cancer. A number of years after her mother’s death, Carla learned that s...

Weslinne Cespedes, who lives in Brooklyn, was diagnosed with stage III triple-negative breast cancer at age 30 in March of this year, just as New York City was deciding when and what to shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Listen to the podcast to hear Weslinne talk about: how finding a lump in her breast led to her diagnosis how the COVID-19 pandemic added to the stress of cancer treatment...

Dr. Leisha Emens is professor of medicine in hematology/oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Hillman Cancer Center. She is also co-leader of the Hillman Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Program and director of translational immunotherapy for the Women’s Cancer Research Center. She is internationally recognized for her research on using immunotherapy to treat breast cancer. At the European S...

Dr. Michael Method is an oncologist and also senior medical adviser and global lead for adjuvant breast cancer treatment research at Lilly Oncology. While ESMO 2020 was virtual this year, there was still quite a bit of breast cancer research presented. Dr. Method joined us to talk about some of the most notable studies. Listen to the podcast to hear him discuss: studies looking at using the CDK4/6...

Infectious disease expert Dr. Elizabeth Robilotti is assistant attending physician and associate medical epidemiologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Listen to the podcast to hear her discuss: why a flu vaccine is so important during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for people diagnosed with breast cancer why you can’t contract the flu from the flu vaccine how to safely celebrate...

Dr. Megan Kruse is a breast medical oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic. On Aug. 24, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) modified its COVID-19 testing guidelines to say that people who don’t have symptoms don’t need to be tested, even if they’ve been exposed to the virus. Many experts questioned the change, and on Aug. 26, the director of the CDC issued a statement saying tha...

Dr. Stephen Johnston is professor of breast cancer medicine and consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and The Institute of Cancer Research in London. At the European Society for Medical Oncology Virtual Congress 2020, Dr. Johnston presented results from the monarchE trial. This study compared treating people diagnosed with early-stage hormone-receptor-positive, HE...

On July 30, 2020, Breastcancer.org hosted a virtual town hall to hear from medical experts and patients about the effect of COVID-19 on breast cancer care. During the town hall, the medical experts answered many questions, but didn’t have time to answer all of them. In this podcast, Breastcancer.org medical adviser Dr. Brian Wojciechowski answers the rest of the questions. If you’d like more infor...