BROOKLYN – Dr. Ioannis Hatzaras, Surgical Oncologist and Director of the Surgical Oncology Outreach Program at NYU Lutheran spoke with The National Herald about his work, research, and the advancements in treating patients with cancer.
As he was growing up in Thessaloniki, did he always want to be a doctor? “I wanted to do something scientific, something that was challenging,” he told TNH. “I come from a family of doctors and engineers. My mother is a physician, retired, infectious disease specialist and my father is an engineer, so I was always drawn to the sciences. In high school, I was an athlete, I sailed, so I became fascinated with how the human body works and wanted to learn more and more about it.”
Regarding the demanding career of a surgeon, he said “you are sort of always on call and but that’s a good thing also, I wouldn’t want a nine-to-five-type job, I like the fact that my profession keeps me plugged in to my patients, my associates, even my friends and family, they know that I’m always there if something health-related happens to them.”
Hatzaras then spoke about NYU Lutheran: “NYU became affiliated with and then purchased Lutheran Hospital, it’s been roughly two years, they wanted to expand into Brooklyn and offer very high quality services. NYU is one of the pillars of healthcare in New York City so for an institutional giant to come to Brooklyn, I think it’s very beneficial to the community here.
“They have access to tremendous resources, but they have access to very high quality physicians as well. The vision that our dean has laid out is that the NYU Brooklyn campus, NYU Lutheran is a natural continuation of the campus in Manhattan and the institution will offer the type of service and the quality of service that we offer in Manhattan down here in Brooklyn to make it easy for the patients and perhaps more importantly for the patients’ family, their support system, to access this very high quality care. In this framework, oncology is one of the priorities for the institution.”
He continued: “when I was asked to lead this new effort, I was thrilled for two reasons, first because I like the idea of building a new service in a place where it doesn’t exist under the auspices and protection that NYU can offer. Also the second-highest concentration of Greeks is here.
“I am very honored and privileged to be of Greek heritage, and not only Greeks but a lot of other ethnic minorities also live in this area. It really is a very good representation of what New York City stands for in my mind which is a melting pot of all cultures and to be able to offer high quality healthcare to this population, I saw that as a very interesting challenge.”
Dr. Hatzaras, who is also Assistant Professor at NYU’s Department of Surgery, spoke about his research: “Every NYU faculty member has to do research. My affiliation with the school of medicine prompts me and encourages me to do research.
“I have a background in clinical research. I investigate gastrointestinal malignancies and I write papers that try to answer the fundamental question- how will patients do long term based on the characteristics of their illness? We’ve been successful in writing papers on this question which is based on another fundamental principle- that not all cancer is the same.
“Under the heading cancer, there are numerous diseases, even under the heading pancreatic cancer, cancer of one organ, there are numerous diseases and there are many variables that determine how the disease will ‘behave,’ how aggressive or not it will be, and as a researcher it is fascinating to me to understand these variables, what are the key elements that will predict how aggressive the disease will be.
“As a clinician, I am fascinated by how we can tailor treatment to each patient, it’s really a bespoke suit, if you will, a tailor-made treatment plan per patient because two patients with the same disease likely will require different treatment, so it’s fascinating to try to understand what are the differences that make each person’s disease unique and trying to exploit these differences for therapeutic opportunities or blunt them in such a way that an aggressive disease will have a better outcome.”
Surgery plays a key role in the treatment of cancer, the doctor noted. The added knowledge of genetic information and immunotherapy allow the surgeon “to offer better treatment options such as a more aggressive or perhaps less aggressive operation.
“A lot of people come to me and they’re really scared, terrified, about the diagnosis of cancer, but what I try to do first is give them as much hope as I can without, of course, taking away from the seriousness of the situation. I tell them that we can fight this, if we don’t do anything you’re going to live x amount of time.
“If we do something, if we do a comprehensive management of this disease you may live 2x, 3x, God knows how much and with that net increase in survival who knows what else will come up. I go to 3 or 4 national and international meetings every year and a lot of very good research is presented and every once in a while, once or twice a year something is a major leap forward, so if you have a net increase in the overall survival maybe that amazing leap forward will apply to that specific patient and you can use it and then you would be living 10x because you’re using all the recent developments, so the idea is to cure cancer but even if we turn cancer into a chronic disease that’s meaningful progress.”
What advice can he offer to reduce the risk of developing cancer? #1 stop smoking, #2 eat healthy, and #3 exercise regularly.
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