“One Chance to Get It Right”continued from page 1
Faculty Highlight
James Liu, MD
Dr. James Liu is
a neurosurgeon
who specializes
in the surgical
and radiosurgical
treatment of brain
and spine tumors.
He received his
undergraduate
education from
the University of Michigan, and his
medical degree from Case Western
Reserve University School of Medicine.
He received his neurosurgical training
at the Cleveland Clinic, during which
time he completed a post-doctoral
fellowship in Brain Tumor Stem Cells
in the Department of Stem Cell Biology
and Regenerative Medicine at the
Cleveland Clinic.
For the past three years Dr. Liu was
an Assistant Professor of Neurological
Surgery at Case Western Reserve
University School of Medicine,
practicing at Metrohealth Medical
Center. His practice consisted of
leading the brain and spine tumor
services, as well as general and
trauma neurosurgery.
Dr. Liu relocated to Florida with his
wife Hien, who is a medical oncologist
specializing in bone marrow trans-
plantation and apheresis. They have
a 3-year-old daughter, Vivienne, and
Julian, who is 11 months old. When he
is not fulfilling Vivi’s request to listen
to Bruce Springsteen or keeping Julian
from harming himself, Dr. Liu tries to
find time to ride his bicycle.
continues on page 3
You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover
Why would you want treatment based on appearances alone?
Dr. Macaulay is a Molecular and Neuropathologist. He is a highly
trained and passionate expert in studying the appearances of
tumors as well as their molecular behavior. Along with Dr. Walko,
a Personalized Medicine Pharmacologist, they can help match your
particular tumor type to specific personalized medicine. Appearances
are very important and Dr. Macaulay is highly trained at making the
important distinctions on the basis of how the tumor appears under
the microscope to classify your tumor correctly, to make sure that you
get the right treatment at the right time and perhaps more importantly,
not too much treatment. Many tumors can look the same to the untrained
eye, and even benign tumors which can be cured surgically for example,
can look exactly like some highly malignant tumors. It is very important
to have a highly trained person like Dr. Macaulay to make a difference
in the outcome of your treatment. No one wants to be overtreated,
undertreated or undergo treatment that isn’t needed or beneficial.
As importantly, as he begins to implement personalize molecular
markers in the setting of the Personalized Medicine Institute at Moffitt,
Dr. Macaulay is hoping to bring a molecular diagnosis for each neural
oncologic patient. This applies to patients with brain tumors, whether
they arise in the brain itself or metastasize from elsewhere in the body,
as well as a host of spinal cord tumors and even tumors involving the
peripheral nerve. We offer a practical approach as to integrating the
explosion in knowledge about molecular biology and tumor genomics
into your care as rapidly as possible. Not to trivialize this but it’s like
buying a suit (for women or men); do you want “one off the rack” or
one that’s ”tailor made”? We offer a tailor made solution whenever
possible. Sometimes it takes a bit longer but in the long run is worth it.
You have only one chance to get it right.
It Takes a Village to Raise a Child
Patients with rare tumors need to come to a specialized NCI Designated
Cancer Center. Most of our patients have rare tumors that require very
large and complex teams to get it right. This involves many physicians
and other members of the health care team working together, even
if we are from different disciplines and different areas of expertise.
As an example, in this issue we highlight a rare central nervous tumor
called Primary CNS Lymphoma, which requires an active collaboration
with the team involving lymphoma experts, radiation oncology doctors,
chemotherapy experts, cancer pharmacist, neurosurgeons, neurologist,
and neuro-oncologist. The treatment of these tumors is highly specialized
and potentially curative. So at the same time as aggressively pursuing
the correct treatment, we want to deliver treatment that has as little
side effects as possible, particularly in the long term. This is particularly
important with this kind of tumor because
many patients have a good chance of
living many years after treatment;
sometimes decades. In the 1950s and
60s most children with leukemia died,
so the long-term side effects of the
treatment were less important.
But now most of these children are
cured (thank goodness) so the longterm
side effects of treatment are important.
We have a similar philosophy. Read more
about this in the section on Primary Central
Nervous System (CNS) Lymphoma and the
great Team that treats these patients.
2 NEURON NEWS | 2018 ISSUE MOFFITT.org