Rosenzweig is the chairman of Mount Sinai’s Department of Radiation Oncology. He works closely with thoracic surgeon Dr. Raja Flores and epidemiologist Dr. Emanuela Taioli in providing specialized care for each patient they see.
Together, they have pioneered treatment advances that have extended survival and improved quality of life for patients with pleural mesothelioma.
For many years, he has worked on the implementation and evaluation of the latest techniques, including stereotactic body radiation and intensity modulated radiation therapy. He is always searching for more effective ways to treat patients.
He has been a leader in the use of targeted radiation therapy in combination with chemotherapy after lung-sparing pleurectomy/decortication (P/D) surgery.
Under his leadership, Mount Sinai became one of the first specialty centers to utilize the intensity-modulated pleural radiation therapy (IMPRINT) procedure as part of the multi-disciplinary approach to treating mesothelioma.
“It’s exciting that technology has caught up with what we needed to help these patients,” he said. “We’re hoping that all centers with experience in treating mesothelioma will now look at this as another technique to put in their arsenal.”
Making Radiation Therapy Safer for Patients
Rosenzweig has treated mesothelioma for more than 20 years. He believes the IMPRINT technique is the first to come with an acceptably low incidence rate of radiation pneumonitis. This treatment side effect is a major hazard for patients with tumors in the chest.
His recent mesothelioma study used IMPRINT as part of a trimodal approach to treatment. The results included a one-year survival rate of 100 percent and a 53 percent two-year survival rate.
“We know that giving radiation after surgery makes it less likely for the tumor to come back, but it’s very challenging to deliver it safely when the lung is still there,” he said. “Over the last 10 to 12 years, we’ve been working on techniques to deliver it safely.”
Another study he was involved in showed that mesothelioma patients who underwent radiation therapy had two- and five-year survival rates almost double those who did not undergo radiation. This was regardless of what other treatments were used.
“Even if radiation isn’t the ultimate cure, it’s still a good thing if we can get patients a significant amount of quality time with minimal side effects,” he said. “Things are getting better.”
Quick Fact
Before coming to Mount Sinai, he spent 13 years at nearby Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Rosenzweig also has been involved recently in the development of the novel New York Proton Center. This is a collaborative effort of three New York City cancer centers to provide an even-more specialized form of radiation treatment. It is expected to open in 2019.
Rosenzweig has published more than 70 scientific articles and authored numerous textbook chapters on his work with radiation therapy. He has served on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Clinical Trials Evaluation Panel and the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) Lung Committee.
His clinical focus includes lung, liver, pancreatic, gallbladder, esophageal, thyroid and mesothelioma cancers.
He graduated from Yale University School of Medicine and did his residency and internship at the Harvard Medical School.
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