Rush offers comprehensive care for cancerous and noncancerous
tumors of the endocrine system, including adrenal tumors, pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, parathyroid tumors and thyroid tumors. The endocrine cancer team uses state-of-the-art  procedures and imaging techniques to diagnose each patient as quickly and accurately as possible. After diagnosis, individualized treatment plans are developed for each patient. An endocrinologist provides each patient with long-term care, including medication dose adjustment and follow-up scans. In cases that require surgery, the endocrine surgeon collaborates with the endocrinologist to provide this follow-up care.

2011 Highlights

Diagnostic capabilities: Rush offers patients the following advanced diagnostic capabilities: CT scanning, endoscopic ultrasound, fine-needle aspiration biopsy, MRI and nuclear scanning. Treatment for endocrine cancers at Rush may include the following, alone or in combination: surgery, radioactive iodine therapy, hormone therapy, chemotherapy and radiation.

New surgeon: Endocrine surgeon Katy Heiden, MD, recently joined the Rush University Cancer Center. Prior to coming to Rush, Heiden was involved in the development of a grading system for radiologic studies used in parathyroid localization, studying the role of intraoperative surgeon-performed ultrasound in thyroid and parathyroid surgery, and identification and characterization of thyroid pathology in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis.

NIH trial for thyroid cancer: Rush will be the only Chicago-area institution to participate in a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded multicenter trial to test a serum tumor marker called TSHR mRNA. This is a tumor marker that helps detect thyroid cancer in the peripheral blood that can be used both for diagnosis and
surveillance of thyroid cancer.

State-of-the-art OR communication technologies: Surgeries for endocrine cancers are performed in Rush’s new interventional platform. Here an audiovisual system connects all the operating rooms to each other and to other departments at Rush via a two-way interface.The connection enables surgeons to consult with pathologists, radiologists and other surgeons in real time during procedures. Physicians at Rush are also able to transmit images and video anywhere in the world for educational purposes and for referring physicians.

Multidisciplinary Team

Endocrine surgeon:

Katy Heiden, MD

Endocrinologists:

David Baldwin, MD; Tiffany Hor, MD; Chung Kay Koh, MD; Kristina Tordorova-Koteva, MD; Sirimon Reutrakul, MD

Clinical Trials

For information about open clinical trials, visit www.rush.edu/cancerclinicaltrials. To enroll a patient in a clinical trial, call (312) 942-0600.

For more information about the endocrine cancer program or to refer a patient for an initial visit or a second opinion, please call (312) CANCER-1 (226-2371).