At the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology, our specialists work closely together to provide state-of-the-art treatment for patients with lung cancer, mesothelioma and other cancers of organs in the chest wall. We offer many resources, from nutritional help to complementary therapies, to support you throughout treatment and beyond.
About the Center
The Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology treats lung cancer — non-small cell lung cancer, small cell lung cancer, and mesothelioma — and other cancers of organs within the chest. We take a team approach to your treatment, coordinating among our specialists and offering a range of support services so you receive the highest quality care.
Our physicians work closely together to provide all the clinical resources you need during your cancer treatment. Your health care team includes distinguished thoracic surgeons, radiation oncologists, and medical oncologists. The team is with you at each stage of treatment to support your needs during your time at Dana-Farber. We believe in the importance of personalized medicine, and have developed a clinical research program which aims to identify the right treatment for the right patient at the right time.
In addition to our medical services, you have access to support services that meet your physical and emotional needs during your care. These include nutritional advice, integrative therapies like acupuncture and Reiki, pain and palliative specialists, and mental health professionals.
Our clinicians are experts in treating all types of thoracic cancer, including:
Treatment Approach
Dana-Farber's Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology is committed to delivering the most innovative treatment options available to patients with all stages of lung and other thoracic cancers, with the goal of increasing survival and quality of life.
You can expect exceptional care from world-class specialists in an environment that supports the needs of patients and their families. Our care is based on the latest advances in tumor genetic testing, personalized lung cancer treatment, innovative surgical techniques, and other forms of therapy.
Personalized lung tumor therapy is at the heart of our treatment philosophy. Our medical oncologists are experts in identifying changes in the genes of tumors that fuel their growth. They can then use this knowledge to design and develop treatments that focus on the specific weaknesses of each patient's tumor.
Patients with advanced adenocarcinoma of the lung are offered genetic analysis of their cancer tumor. This genetic profile, which identifies abnormal genes that drive an individual's tumor, can help identify promising treatments, including oral "targeted" drugs or specific clinical trials matched to the tumor's weak points. Our novel treatments include new drug combinations aimed at overcoming drug resistance.
Your treatment team may include thoracic surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, and pulmonologists. A comprehensive, coordinated team approach is important because the care of lung cancer patients can be extremely complex and often includes more than one type of treatment.
At all times, the team will focus on total care for your specific cancer, emphasizing pain management, pulmonary rehabilitation, wound care, nutrition, and your emotional and educational needs.
Accurate diagnosis is critical to ensuring the best treatment. Dana-Farber offers the latest diagnostic techniques available, such as high-resolution CT scanning, positron emission tomography (PET), advanced bronchoscopic imaging including navigational bronchoscopy, and fine needle aspirations/biopsies as well as other minimally invasive methods such as endobronchial ultrasound-directed biopsy.
Our thoracic surgical oncologists are members of Brigham and Women's Division of Thoracic Surgery and are leaders in lung cancer surgery techniques. They perform minimally invasive operations designed to decrease pain, shorten the delay for patients to return to work and activity, and limit scarring. They're also international experts in surgery for mesothelioma, a lung cancer associated with exposure to asbestos.
Our thoracic radiation oncologists use advanced lung radiation treatments and target tumors with image-guided, stereotactic techniques that focus the treatment on the tumor, sparing healthy tissue. We also offer several novel radiation therapy techniques, which include four-dimensional treatment planning (4D), intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). These techniques may allow for safer, more effective treatment of a patient's cancer.
Treatment Team
The Lowe Center staff work together to cover all aspects of your care. You'll receive the combined knowledge of specialists in thoracic cancer who are focused on providing expert, compassionate treatment.
Medical Oncology
Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, Program Director
David A. Barbie, MD
Leena Gandhi, MD, PhD
Stacy W.Gray, MD
Peter Hammerman, MD
Stephanie (Heon) Cardarella, MD
David M. Jackman, MD
Joseph O. Jacobson, MD
Bruce E. Johnson, MD
David J. Kwiatkowski, MD, PhD
Christopher S. Lathan, MD
J. Paul Marcoux, MD
Geoffrey R. Oxnard, MD
Michael S. Rabin, MD
Geoffrey I. Shapiro, MD, PhD
Michael J. Vasconcelles, MD
Kwok-Kin Wong, MD, PhD
Thoracic Surgery
Raphael Bueno, MD
Phillip C. Camp, MD
Daniel Michael Cohen
Yolanda Colson, MD, PhD
Michael T. Jaklitsch, MD
Steven J. Mentzer, MD
Ciaran J. McNamee, MD
David J. Sugarbaker, MD
Scott J. Swanson, MD
Jon O. Wee, MD, FACS
Radiation Oncology
Elizabeth Baldini, MD, MPH
Jennifer Bellon, MD
Aileen B. Chen, MD, MPP
Raymond Dugal, MD
David Kozono, MD
Raymond H. Mak, MD
Julia Wong, MD
Pulmonary
Victor M. Pinto-Plata, MD
Gerald Weinhouse, MD
Nursing
New Patient Nurses
Karen Marr, RN, MSN
Bernadette Masterson-Avellino, RN
Clinic Program Nurse
Kitty Hooper, RN, OCN
Tobacco Treatment Specialist
Mary Cooley, PhD, CRNP
Nurse Practitioners
Pamela Calarese, RN, MS, CS, NP
Margaret McMullin, MSN, APRN, BC, OCN, NP
Cathleen Power, NP
Research Staff
Joan Lucca, RN, MSN, AOCN (Research Nurse)
Linda Morse, RN, MSN (Research Nurse)
Kimberly MacNeill (Clinical Project Manager)
Social Work
Rachel Allende, LICSW (Spanish and Portuguese-speaking patients)
Esther Paige Anderson, LICSW (Inpatient)
Allison DiBiaso, LICSW
New Patient Coordinator
Amy Li
Surgical Coordinator
Alex Morse
Program Administrator
Joy McGugan
Clinical Research
Clinical research plays an essential role in the mission of the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology. Our center has played a leading role in lung cancer research over the past decade, helping to introduce a new era of personalized medicine for the treatment of lung cancer. A strategy of personalized therapy permeates our research, with intelligently designed clinical trials supported by laboratory research and studies of cancer genetics.
The Lowe Center prides itself on offering cutting-edge clinical research. Our clinical trials are developed with the aim of identifying the most promising new cancer drugs and delivering them to the patients most likely to benefit from them. Many of these trials study "targeted therapies," which are drugs that act on unique characteristics of cancer cells and often have milder side effects compared to conventional chemotherapy. Other trials study new drug combinations, with the hope of overcoming drug resistance.
Personalized cancer therapy requires a detailed understanding of cancer genetics. By studying tumor tissue, we can often identify genetic changes which fuel the cancer's growth. For example, through collaborations with the Laboratory for Molecular Medicine, we routinely test lung adenocarcinoma for mutations in several important genes (including EGFR, KRAS, ALK, HER2, and BRAF) in order to select the best possible treatment strategy.
Doctors in our Lowe Center are also researching familial lung cancer, lung cancer in non-smokers, improved management of drug side-effects, resistance to targeted therapies, improved management of brain metastases, and other related areas.
Learn about a study on lung cancer risk in patients with inherited EGFR T790M mutations.
Contact Us
New patients
If you have never been seen before at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center, please call 877-442-3324 or use this online form to make an appointment.
Referring physicians: 617-632-6875
All other inquiries: 617-632-5301
Fax: 617-632-4413
Mailing address
Carole M. and Philip L. Lowe Thoracic Oncology Program
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
450 Brookline Ave.
Boston, MA 02215-5450