Professor Eben Rosenthal – Stanford University

Talk Title: Challenges in surgical imaging: Surgical and pathological devices

Talk Abstract: Cancer is a surgically treated disease; almost 80% of early stage solid tumors undergo surgery at some point in their treatment course. The biggest gap in quality remains the high rate of tumor-positive margins in surgical resections. The biggest barrier is that only a limited amount of the tissue can be sampled for frozen section analysis (< 5%). The biggest challenge is to develop equipment to direct frozen section analysis to the most area on the specimen most likely to contain a positive margin. To this end, we developed intraoperative devices to leverage molecular imaging during and immediately after cancer resections.

Speaker’s Biography: Eben Rosenthal is a surgeon-scientist who serves as the John and Ann Doerr Medical Director of the Stanford Cancer Center. I have been at Stanford for 4 years – mostly taking care of head and neck cancer patients. Which is odd, because I love to smoke. I have been smoking some great brisket, beef jerky, and pastrami in the back yard for my family – but mostly for my eighteen year-old son who inhales meat put in front of him. My wife and I love to spend time sailing in the San Francisco Bay on the weekends and spend time with our two dogs – who go by Lazy and Crazy.