Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Do you know which physical traits you inherited from your parents and grandparents? I’m fairly tall and so are my parents, so I can surmise that my tall stature was linked to an inherited trait. Each of us inherits cells with a set of chromosomes containing the genetic information passed down from our parents. Genes [...]

One person in the United States dies every 10 minutes from a blood cancer – leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. This year more than 140,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed and more than 53,000 will die from these blood cancers, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The good news is the overall [...]

Just over 40 years ago, on Dec. 23, 1971, President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act and our country waged an unofficial “War on Cancer.” This prompted a significant boost in U.S. investment in cancer research, with the National Cancer Institute alone spending more than $105 billion in the years since. Other government agencies, foundations [...]

The nearly 100 percent five-year survival rate for localized prostate cancer is one of the great success stories in the field. But when a man is told he has prostate cancer, it quickly becomes clear just how frightening and confusing that diagnosis can be. Fortunately, there are many treatment options. But for early stage, localized [...]

I’m no fan of smoking. In fact, I wish we could reduce the smoking rate in this country to zero. Even if this wish were to come true, between 15,000 and 25,000 Americans would still die of lung cancer each year. Tobacco use is a key issue in lung cancer. The link between smoking and [...]

Whether through job losses, workplace budget cuts, or just tightening the belt at home, we’ve all been affected by the economic downturn. Here at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, we have not let the economy stall our progress. We took very seriously the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity afforded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and were successful in [...]