Surgeon
Thoracic Surgery
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Surgery - Brigham and Women's Hospital
Bio
David Mason, M.D., is a thoracic surgery specialist at the Cleveland Clinic who has performed 54 types of surgery involving 47 different diseases.
Among the procedures on his list are pleurectomy and pneumonectomy, two top-level surgeries used to help patients with malignant mesothelioma, and double-lung transplantations. There is very little involving thoracic surgery – large or small – that Mason he has not done or seen.
Fast Fact: Mason served as a moderator for the Sunrise Symposia, a section of the 2011 American Transplant Congress.
Mason began working in the Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute, Transplantation Center and Cancer Institute in 2004, exploring a number of clinical specialties. He has a particular interest in minimally invasive, video assisted thoracic surgery, which speeds recovery time, decreases pain and avoids the more traumatic spreading of the ribs.
"The use of VATS (video assisted thoracic surgery) has allowed more liberal criteria for surgery since recovery is much easier," he said during a Cleveland Clinic web chat.
Mason is also a proponent of the multi-disciplinary approach to treatment that is now standard practice at the Cleveland Clinic. It allows doctors from different disciplines to collaborate more easily on a patient's best treatment options.
At the Cleveland Clinic, all patients with thoracic malignancies are evaluated in this fashion," he said. "We believe that where you get started first for thoracic malignancies is critical to obtaining optimal survival.
Mason has experience dealing with pleural effusions, fluid buildup commonly associated with pleural mesothelioma. The complication that can cause discomfort for a patient until the fluid is drained from the lung area and pressure is relieved. He has also performed surgery involving achalasia, a relative rare condition in which the esophagus can't move food into the stomach. The Cleveland Clinic treats an estimated two patients a week, more than any other treatment facility in the United States.
Mason, who is board certified in both general and thoracic surgery, is a member of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. His interest in mesothelioma came from a fellowship he did in Thoracic Surgery at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he trained under surgeon David Sugarbaker.
He completed an earlier internship and residency at Brigham and Women's before taking a position as Senior Research Fellow in Vascular Surgery at the University of Washington. After getting his undergraduate degree from Harvard University, he received his medical degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.
He has authored or coauthored several textbook chapters and articles on his special interests, including video-assisted thoracic surgery and gastroesophageal reflux.
He was part of a major study, involving 7,900 patients that measured the impact of smoking cessation prior to lung cancer resection
