Title

Chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts

Phone

(617) 732-6824

Education

MD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, 1979

Residencies

1. Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Intern in Surgery, 1979-1980
2. Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Junior Resident in Surgery, 1980-1982
3. Brigham and Women's Hospital, Senor Resident in Surgery, 1984-1985
4. Toronto General Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital & Hospital For Sick Children, U. of Toronto, Chief Resident in Thoracic Surgery, 1986-1987
5. Toronto General Hospital, Chief Resident in Cardiac Surgery, 1987-1988
6. Hospital For Sick Children, U. of Toronto, Resident in Surgery, 1987-1988

Fellowships

1. Research Fellow in Gastroenterology, The Charles A. Dana Research Institute and the Harvard Thorndyke Laboratory, Beth Israel Hospital & Harvard Medical School, 1982-1984
2. Arthur Tracey Cabot Fellow in Surgery, Assistant to the Chief of Surgery, Chief Resident Surgeon, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 1985-1986

Board Certifications

1. Thoracic Surgery, 1989

Academic Appointments

1. Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, 1988-1993
2. Associate Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, 1993-1999
3. Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, 1999

Clinical Interests

1. Congenital chest wall deformities
2. Esophageal cancer and motility disorders
3. General thoracic surgery
4. Lung and pleural cancer
5. Volume reduction emphysema surgery
6. Mesothelioma

Website

Biography/CV (will open new window)

Dr. David Sugarbaker is Chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is also Chief of Surgical Services at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Sugarbaker is a pioneer in mesothelioma research and one of the most cited physicians in the literature describing the treatment of asbestos-related disease. He is also a renowned thoracic surgeon and the founder of the International Mesothelioma Program (IMP), www.impmeso.org. Dr. Sugarbaker founded the International Pleural Mesothelioma Program as a response to the growing incidence of the disease.

Dr. Sugarbaker is board certified in Thoracic Surgery and Surgery. He attended Wheaton College and Cornell University Medical School. He completed his Surgery residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Cardiothoracic training at the Toronto General Hospital as Chief Resident in Thoracic Surgery and Chief Resident in Cardiac Surgery. His interests are in mesothelioma, minimally invasive surgery, general thoracic surgery, lung volume reduction surgery, video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS), non-small cell lung cancer, and esophageal cancer.

Dr. Sugarbaker has been actively involved in the development of several other programs including: The Division of Thoracic Surgery --1988-present; the Brigham Lung Transplant Program; the Thoracic Oncology Program at the DFCI/BWH --1995-present; Surgical Services at the DFCI --1996-present; and the Lung Volume Reduction Program at BWH -- 1996-present. He has been active in the development of new minimally invasive surgical procedures and actively involved in the areas of therapy of thoracic malignancy.

Malignant pleural mesothelioma has been a central focus of Dr. Sugarbaker's clinical and laboratory research. He helped devise a trimodality therapeutic approach based on extrapleural pneumonectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy and radiation. This series has resulted in improved overall survival with acceptable morbidity and operative mortality, and has led to new prognostic variables for this disease. These include cell type, nodal status and resectablity, which have formed the foundation of a new staging system, currently in use, which was presented to the American Surgical Association in 1996.

Dr. Sugarbaker also serves as Chair of the Surgery Committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB). He has played a leadership role in developing the clinical investigation of the role of surgery in cancer therapy trials, with the support of NCI U10 funding. This effort has supported the clinical investigation of new therapies in thoracic, GI and breast malignancies. These prospective clinical investigations have led to further NCI U10 support to examine the efficacy of new minimally invasive thoracic surgery techniques in the staging and treatment of thoracic malignancy.

Dr. Sugarbaker also serves as co-director and operations chair of the BWH Tissue and Blood Repository. Recently the scope of the bank was expanded to serve as an institutional core facility for specimen procurement and distribution in a wide array of malignancies, as well as blood, cells, benign and neo-plastic tissues, and nucleic acids.

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