Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Barbara Forbes, MSN, keeps a big jar of tar on her desk. The dark, goopy mess is a visual representation of the amount of tar that a smoker will ingest by smoking one pack of cigarettes per day for a year. Forbes is the director of the Smoking Cessation Institute at the Vanderbilt Dayani Center [...]

On Mother’s Day 2008, Marcia Akers was expecting a traditional Mother’s Day gift from her children. Instead, she received a piercing pain, like a lightning bolt streaking down the right side of her body. The seizure resulted in a trip to a Nashville hospital where tests revealed a golf ball-size tumor in her brain. Doctors [...]

What is Melanoma/ Skin Cancer? Melanoma is a cancer that begins in specific type of skin cell. The skin is the body’s largest organ, and it helps protect against, heat, sunlight, injury and infection. Your skin helps control body temperature as well as stores water, fat and vitamin D. With several layers, the epidermis and [...]

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has launched the nation’s first personalized cancer decision support tool, “My Cancer Genome,” to help physicians and researchers track the latest developments in personalized cancer medicine and connect with clinical research trials for their patients. This web-based information tool is designed to quickly educate clinicians on the rapidly expanding list of genetic [...]

Patients with metastatic melanoma being treated with the new investigational cancer drug PLX4032 are showing strong responses, with an 80 percent anti-tumor response rate among patients whose tumors are positive for the B-RAF (V600E) gene mutation. However, in all too many cases, patients are developing resistance to the drug and their cancer is beginning to [...]

A new drug used to treat advanced melanoma patients with a specific genetic mutation in their tumors demonstrated significant tumor shrinkage in the majority of patients during a clinical trials.

The Melanoma Research Alliance has awarded a three-year, $2 million grant to a multi-center team of cancer researchers investigating resistance to a new family of BRAF-targeted kinase inhibitor drugs. These targeted therapies are being tested in melanoma patients whose tumors carry a specific genetic mutation known as V600E BRAF. Jeff Sosman, M.D., professor of Medicine [...]

A new documentary about the exciting era of personalized medicine and health care is now available on YouTube. Your Genome and the Future of Medicine, developed by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, initially aired on local stations in Lexington, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn. The 30-minute documentary, available for viewing in four segments, features interviews with several [...]