Consortium for Canadian Surgical Oncology Research (CanSOR)
CanSOR is an initiative sponsored by the Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology executive to promote and coordinate research completed by members and trainees. The purpose and vision of CanSOR is to foster and collaborate on research completed in a collegial group setting, with focus on discussions of prospective / potential project design, sharing expertise in methodology, identification of appropriate funding sources, and work on abstract and manuscript submission for greatest impact. It is expected that CanSOR members may work to facilitate sharing of deidentified data for larger sample sizes, collaborate on recruiting patients for pilot studies or trials at individual centers, and act as a pathway toward larger grant applications by members. Various methodologies utilized by the group will reflect the complexity of surgical oncology research and research questions, including clinical outcomes (retrospective, prospective), clinicopathologic correlation, qualitative research and mixed methods, quality of life studies, surveys, patient experience and patient-reported outcomes, patient, clinician and trainee education projects. Disease site focus will include: breast cancer, soft tissue sarcoma, cutaneous malignancies, upper and lower GI cancers including HPB, and peritoneal-based cancers.
CanSOR members will participate in virtual meetings q 2 months to start, with agenda items including specific projects brought forth by members set in advance.
Director - Dr. Valerie Francescutti, MD, MSc, FRCSC, FACS
Dr. Francescutti is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of General Surgery at McMaster University. She is a Surgical Oncology based at the Hamilton General Hospital and Juravinski Cancer Center.
She completed her undergraduate degree with honours at the University of Toronto, followed by her MD and her General Surgery Residency at McMaster University. Dr. Francescutti then completed her Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo NY. During fellowship, she began her studies towards her Master’s Degree in Health Research Methodology at McMaster, completing her thesis focusing on knowledge translation and barriers to referral for major surgical oncology procedures, using the cytoreduction and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy procedure as a model. Following fellowship, Dr. Francescutti was recruited as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Oncology at Roswell Park where she worked for 6 years, with clinical practice focusing on melanoma and other skin malignancies, sarcoma, and peritoneal based malignancies such as pseudomyxoma peritonei and appendix cancers for which CS/HIPEC is offered. During her time at Roswell Park she was the Assistant Program Director and subsequently the Program Director for the Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship program.
In 2018 Dr. Francescutti returned to McMaster University, as an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Division of General Surgery. She is a member of the Skin and Sarcoma disease site teams at the Juravinski Cancer Center. Her research focuses on knowledge translation and clinical outcomes. She is currently the undergraduate and post-graduate clinical teaching unit director for surgery at Hamilton General Hospital, and is the Head of Service for Surgical Oncology for Hamilton Health Sciences.
Co-Director - Dr. Carolyn Nessim MD, MSc, FRCSC, FACS
Dr. Carolyn Nessim is a Surgical Oncologist at the Ottawa Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Ottawa. She is the Program Director for the Complex Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program at the University of Ottawa. She completed her general surgery residency and master’s in biomedical sciences at the University of Montreal and did her Surgical Oncology Fellowships at the University of Toronto and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Her clinical practice focuses on the treatment of patients with Melanoma, Soft Tissue Sarcoma/GIST, and Gastric cancer. She is a Clinician Investigator at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI). She leads many collaborative research projects nationally and internationally in melanoma and soft tissue sarcoma. She is the Regional Chair of the Melanoma and Gastric Cancer Communities of Practice for Eastern Ontario and on the Cancer Care Ontario Skin Cancer Advisory Board as well the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Melanoma Measures Panel. She is the Chair of the Research Evaluation Committee of the Trans-Atlantic Australasian Retroperitoneal Sarcoma Working Group (TARPSWG) and a member of the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Sarcoma Disease site group. She is a section editor for Sarcoma for Annals of Surgical Oncology and a topic editor for Current Oncology. She is the CPD Chair and member of the Board and Executive of the Canadian Association of General Surgeons (CAGS) and is also the Chair of the Surgery and Surveillance working group of the NCIC-Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG). She sits on the Executive of the Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology (CSSO) and the Canadian Gastric Cancer Association (CaGCA). She has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters and is the local PI for multi-international randomized clinical trials like the MELMART-2 and STRASS 2 trials at The Ottawa Hospital.
The Pan-Canadian Merkel Cell Collaboration
is made up of Canadian Surgical Oncologists that have worked together to put together the largest clinical database on Merkel Cell Patients. I would like to acknowledge all of the following people for their great Collaboration in this work.
PI: Carolyn Nessim
The Ottawa Hospital: Stephanie Johnson, Megan Delisle, Brittany Dingley, Joshua Helfer, Andrea Ibrahim, Gabreille Paull
University of British Columbia: Trevor Hamilton, Heather Stuart, Martha Talbot
University of Calgary: Greg McKinnon, Evan Jost, Eva Thiboutot
University of Manitoba: Pamela Hebbard, Olivia Hershorn
McMaster University: Valerie Francescutti, Sal Samman
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center: Frances Wright, David Berger Richardson
University of Toronto Health Network: Alexandra Easson, Angela Schellenberg
Queen’s University: Shaila Merchant, Julie La, Kaitlin Vanderbeck
University of Sherbrooke: Jessika Hetu, Samuel Rodriguez-Qizilbash
University of Montreal: Rami Younan, Erica Patocskai, Samuel Rodriguez-Qizilbash
McGill University: Ari Meguerditchian, Vanina Tchuente, Suzanne Kazandjian
Newfoundland Memorial University: Alex Mathieson, Farisa Hossain
Projects in Progress
Primary Mucosal Melanoma of the Pelvis: Evaluating Disease Management and Outcomes in the Era of Immunotherapy - PI: Valerie Francescutti, Co-I: Meghan Bourque
Radiation-Associated Angiosarcomas of the Breast - PI: Barbara Heller, Co-I: Alexandra Allard-Coutu
Is Nodal US Surveillance in SLNB-positive patients still relevant in Melanoma, in the era of effective adjuvant therapy - PI: Carolyn Nessim, Co-I: Alexandra Allard-Coutu
Absence of benefit of routine screening following resection of Low Risk and Very Low Risk Gastric GIST- PI: Carolyn Nessim, Co-I: Erika Scmitze
Effectiveness of IL-2 intralesional injection for in-transit melanoma - PI: Ari Meguerditchian
Development and Integration of Synoptic Reporting in Peritoneal Surface Malignancies to Facilitate a Pan Canadian Peritoneal Surface Malignancy Database - PI: Brittany Dingley, Co-I: Megan Delisle