Oregon Health & Science University has enhanced its neuro-oncology program for the benefit of patients across Oregon and Southwest Washington.
The OHSU departments of Neurology and Neurological Surgery, and the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute have teamed up to provide neuro-oncology patients -- people with brain or spine tumors or tumors that affect the central nervous system -- with leading-edge clinical care, novel clinical trial options and research focused on developing new treatments.
With fewer than 350 board-certified neuro-oncologists in the entire country, it’s a highly specialized field of medicine — one that’s familiar with all aspects of cancer treatment, from chemotherapy to surgery to radiation, but also uniquely situated to manage the full scope of a patient’s care, in many cases over years.
Sushant Puri, MBBS, and Huan Vo, M.D., officially began work at Oregon’s academic health center this month. With deep personal and professional experience in brain cancer, they are eager to get started.
“I’m excited by the possibilities of growing this important program,” Puri said. “The vision for me and Dr. Vo is when patients in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest hear OHSU neuro-oncology, they know it’s a center of excellence where they will get the best possible care.”
Puri comes to Oregon following two years as a research fellow in the neuro-oncology branch of the National Institutes of Health, after a year-long clinical fellowship in neuro-oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Vo earned his M.D. from Drexel University and completed four years of internal medicine and neurology residencies at OHSU. He completed a neuro-oncology fellowship at UC San Francisco this past year.
But his personal experience in brain cancer runs much deeper.
“I went to medical school to become a neuro-oncologist after an immediate family member was diagnosed with glioblastoma,” he said. “That’s what motivated me.”
The experience of being a caregiver for a patient with brain cancer drives his commitment to involve each patient’s entire care team in their treatment. He knows that caregivers are a crucial part of treatment because he and his family experienced it directly.
“Whenever I see patients, I want to spend as much time as I can with them,” Vo said. “Every patient is unique. We get to know them more than anyone else, aside from direct family members.”
“That deep connection is what drew me to neuro-oncology in the first place,” Puri added.
Neuro-oncologists manage cases involving patients with primary brain cancers such as glioblastomas along with cancers that begin elsewhere in the body but then metastasize to the brain or spinal cord. In either case, a cancer diagnosis is life-altering.
“Believe it or not, it brings out the best in everybody,” Puri said. “It brings into stark reality that life is a finite gift, and we should strive to make the best of it.”
Bolstering neuro-oncology expertise
OHSU took a collaborative approach to expanding the neuro-oncology program to ensure patients have access to state-of-the-art clinical care. The Knight Cancer Institute will provide support from its Clinical Research Management and the Center for Experimental Therapeutics teams to ensure patients have access to the most promising treatments.