Claire F. Verschraegen

Bio

Claire Verschraegen, M.D., is a medical oncologist at University of Vermont College of Medicine. She specializes in rare cancers such as mesothelioma and has been involved in a number of clinical trials in the past 15 years.

Currently, she is investigating the efficacy of a combination of three specific drugs. She hopes that the combination will be more effective than any one of the drugs alone in treating pleural mesothelioma.

Verschraegen is also interested in the growing prospect of intracavitary therapy to treat mesothelioma. This includes localized treatments such as administering chemotherapy drugs directly into the affected body cavity.

Verschraegen stresses the importance of clinical trial research in furthering medical advances. In fact, she calls her clinical trial patients “heroes” for helping in the process. While working at University of New Mexico she took part in the annual HERO breakfast. “The ‘HERO’ stands for ‘Helping Hands, Research in Oncology,’” she said, explaining that it “recognizes all patients who volunteer their participation in clinical trials.”

She also emphasizes doctor-patient communication. She advises all patients to ask plenty of questions and make sure they fully understand their treatments.

In addition to being a practicing oncologist, Verschraegen is a professor of medicine and director of the Hematology/Oncology Unit at the University of Vermont. She has authored or coauthored more than 150 publications.

Publications

As an expert in rare cancers, Verschraegen has contributed to a number of articles on mesothelioma. In 2008 she helped assemble a final report for a phase II peritoneal mesothelioma clinical trial for the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and her other works discussing mesothelioma treatment have appeared in journals such as Clinical Cancer Research.