Tag Archives: Dr. Ann Partridge

Metastatic Breast Cancer Survivor Thriving on Clinical Trial

Posted on September 7, 2018 by Carol

A clinical trial at Dana-Farber has kept Sharon DeCosta’s stage IV metastatic breast cancer stabilized for three years, allowing her a full life of traveling and doting on her three young grandchildren, with a fourth due in December.
It may seem odd that DeCosta celebrates the anniversary of her diagnosis each year with a toast, until you realize the significance of the date.
“I found out I had cancer on April 27, 2015—my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” says DeCosta. “When the doctor told me I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I’m supposed to be on a beach somewhere sipping on a margarita, not hearing …

 

ASCO issues new guideline on treating patients with advanced, HER2-negative breast cancer

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Carol

Dana-Farber doctor co-chairs ASCO expert panel to develop guideline

Ann Partridge, MD, MPH

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) today issued a new clinical practice guideline on chemotherapy and targeted therapy for women with HER2-negative advanced breast cancer. The guideline provides detailed, evidenced-based information on the efficacy and side effects of various therapies.
“In releasing this guideline, our aim is to improve both the length and quality of patients’ lives,” said Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, Founder and Director, Program for Young Women with Breast Cancer,Director, Adult Survivorship Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and co-chair of ASCO’s expert panel that developed the …

 

Young, Poorer Breast Cancer Patients More Likely to Have Delays in Care

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Carol

Young women with fewer financial resources are more likely to experience long delays between the time they detect a breast abnormality and the time they get a diagnosis, a recent study shows. Initially launched to help researchers better understand why breast cancers are more deadly in young women, the study was led by Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, a breast oncologist in the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber, and Kathryn Ruddy, MD, MPH, formerly of Dana-Farber and now at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
The study involved 585 women under age 40 who had recently been diagnosed …

 

Young breast cancer patients often overestimate the benefit of having second breast removed

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Carol

Shoshana Rosenberg, ScD, MPH

Young women with breast cancer often overestimate the odds that cancer will occur in their other, healthy breast, and decide to have the healthy breast surgically removed, a survey conducted by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators indicates. The survey also shows that many patients opt for the procedure – known as a contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, or CPM – despite knowing it will be unlikely to improve their chance of survival.
The study, published in the Sept. 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, shows a certain disconnect between what many patients know on an abstract, intellectual level – …

 

Dana-Farber appoints Partridge as director of adult survivorship program

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Carol

Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, has been named the director of the Adult Survivorship Program and the Lance Armstrong Foundation Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Partridge is an accomplished clinician-researcher who is nationally recognized for her contributions to the fields of breast cancer in young women and cancer survivorship. She has been the clinical director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers Breast Oncology Program at Dana-Farber since 2008.
Partridge founded, and will continue to serve as the director of, Dana-Farber’s Program for Young Women with Breast Cancer, which addresses the unique needs of women in their early 40s and younger. …

 

Kelley Tuthill Keeping Control through Cancer

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Carol

First Person
Kelley Tuthill
Keeping control through cancer
Tuthill and her 4-year-old daughter, Madeline (Diana Wynne photo)

Kelley Tuthill is used to getting the story as an investigative reporter for WCVB-TV in Boston, but after she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 36 just before Christmas 2006, she became the story herself: documenting her care at Dana-Farber for an award-winning series on WCVB titled “Kelley’s Story.”
One thing that Tuthill says has been most beneficial in helping her through her cancer experience are the acupuncture and Reiki treatments she’s received at Dana-Farber’s Leonard P. Zakim Center …

 

Survivor Spotlight A doctor faces breast cancer – and her fears

Posted on October 19, 2010 by Carol

by Debra Bradley Ruder
Physician, researcher, mom … and cancer survivor, Karen Puopolo, MD, PhD.

Toward the end of her fourth pregnancy, Karen Puopolo, MD, PhD, realized something was not normal with her left breast. There was a lump, but Puopolo figured it was a blocked duct or something else related to her pregnancy. Both her breast-feeding consultant and OB/GYN assured her not to worry, and Puopolo – herself a physician and researcher – opted to “wait and see.”
But when her daughter Elizabeth Chloe was about nine …