Stacey Su

Bio

Stacey Su, M.D., joined Penn Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center in 2008, strengthening an already-strong thoracic surgical team and Mesothelioma and Pleural Program that is breaking new ground in the fight against mesothelioma.

Prior to her arrival at Penn, Su spent 10 years at the prestigious Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, honing her surgical skills there as an Intern, a resident and then a fellow. During this time she grew more and more interested in malignant pleural mesothelioma.

It might be a relatively rare cancer compared to others - only 3,000 cases diagnosed nationwide each year - but it was tough to avoid being captivated by the energy surrounding the nearby International Mesothelioma Program and its noted founder David Sugarbaker, M.D., a top surgeon at Brigham and Women's.

Mesothelioma became a challenge she gladly accepted.

Her clinical interests also include the management of malignant diseases of the esophagus and the treatment of lung cancer. Her training at Brigham gave her an expertise in a minimally invasive surgical approach, which she often uses with esophageal and lung cancer.

It's the passion for mesothelioma that gained her recognition in Philadelphia. In 2009 she authored a paper on Multimodality Management of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma as part of Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

"Multimodality treatment . . . with surgery, radiation therapy, and adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy is the sole path to extended survival for select patients with favorable prognostic factors," she wrote. "No single-modality approach has produced equivalent results."

Her article offered tempered hope that significant improvements were on the horizon, yet also hinted at the frustration that the cancer has caused in the medical community by continuing to baffle the experts.

"Other approaches to multimodality treatment have capitalized on an array of innovative technologies, in search of the silver bullet that will ultimately undermine the biological behavior demonstrated by MPM," she wrote. "Additionally, studies using gene ratios will yield more accurate means by which to diagnose, distinguish prognosticators and more selectively assign patients to aggressive treatments."

She also was the lead author for a book chapter on "The Treatment of Pleural Mesothelioma" that she wrote two years earlier with Sugarbaker in Boston. The book was "Difficult Decisions in Thoracic Surgery: An Evidence-Based Approach."

The question they raised with the chapter was whether there was benefit to a pleuropneumonectomy (the surgical resection of an entire lung) without the multimodality approach. It detailed the 31 percent operative mortality rate, a five-year survival of just 3 percent, and a median survival of 10 months.

"The failure of EPP (extrapleural pneumonectomy) to extend survival in the context of a single-modality regimen is well established," she wrote.

Su, originally from California, graduated from Stanford University, where she received bachelor degrees in both music and biology. She attended the University of California at San Diego Medical School before leaving for Boston. She belongs to both the American College of Surgeons and the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Publications

Su authored an article about multimodality treatment methods for mesothelioma and co-authored a book chapter about the risks of pleuropneumonectomy when performed as part of a single-modality treatment plan. The latter was a part of a study she conducted with renowned mesothelioma specialist, David Sugarbaker, M.D.