When Pat Sweeny was diagnosed with melanoma in 2014, she looked for treatments to help slow the progression of cancer that had spread to her lungs. However, she discovered few options existed. She asked her physician at Sutter’s California Pacific Medical Center about joining a clinical trial to help uncover clues for optimal treatment. She qualified to join a study testing how a specific combination of cancer immunotherapy drugs could stop the melanoma from progressing. It could also potentially provide a cure.
Ten years later and now cancer free, a grateful Sweeny shared her story and thanked Sutter Health at the not-for-profit health system’s second-annual research symposium held Aug. 2 in South San Francisco, Calif.
“By participating in research, I was happy to ‘pay it forward’ and bring new hope for a better quality of life for people living with cancer,” Sweeny told the researchers, physicians, residents and fellows in attendance. They gathered to share how innovation, learning and discovery are accelerating across the Sutter system.
Leon Clark, chief academic affairs officer at Sutter Health, and Dr. Chris Woods, Sutter’s chief medical director of research and system science
“Sutter has led cutting-edge research for more than 100 years, bringing better care to more patients when and where they need it. This foundation of the highest-quality science has made possible medical advances and pioneering approaches to care that continue today,” says Dr. Christopher Woods, Sutter’s chief medical director of research and system science. “From bench to bedside and beyond, research and clinical trials at Sutter are working toward uncovering the clues and the keys to improve treatments and tools for early diagnoses of complex illnesses, and to help find cures.”
Research and clinical trials continue catalyzing care breakthroughs at Sutter. Early pioneers: Physicians from Sutter’s Palo Alto Medical Foundation were the first to use lasers in eye disease and skin treatment. Clinicians at Sutter’s CPMC created the first heart-lung machine and tested a targeted cancer drug that became a game-changing approach to treat and even cure some types of cancer. Sutter General Hospital, which is now Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, was the site of the first robot-assisted hip replacement surgery in a human patient. Explore more research at Sutter Health and find out if a clinical trial could be right for you. Visit sutterhealth.org/research
Curious to know more? Here’s how:
New Ways to Stop Melanoma’s Development, Spread
Sutter researchers and medical oncologists Dr. Mohammed Kashani-Sabet and Dr. Kevin Kim have a “big picture” view of melanoma that’s grown the Center for Melanoma Research and Treatment at CPMC into one of the largest of its kind on the U.S. West Coast.
Since 2009, Dr. Kashani-Sabet, Dr. Kim and their research team at CPMC have helped make possible advances including:
- The first targeted, FDA-approved therapy for melanoma (nivolumab, later approved by the FDA for the treatment of other types of aggressive cancers)
- Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models to study cancer progression and develop novel treatment approaches through Sutter’s Cancer Avatar Program
- One of the first studies showing exactly which genes are involved in the spread of melanoma to lymph nodes and internal organs
- Novel ways to test the effectiveness of targeted drugs called poly-ADP ribose polymerase, or PARP, inhibitors for melanoma
- Unique algorithms to determine what individuals are best suited to undergo sentinel lymph node biopsy to accurately stage their melanoma and preserve use of the technique for people most likely to benefit.
With hundreds of scientific publications under their collective “research belt” that reflect the participation of hundreds of Sutter patients, the melanoma researchers show no signs of slowing down.
“The cure for melanoma remains unknown, so we’re focused on solutions we can bring here and now to the newly diagnosed melanoma patients who seek oncologic care at Sutter Health each year,” says Dr. Kashani-Sabet, medical director of the CPMC Cancer Center.
What’s next? Their curious minds keep exploring. “Through research we ask and help answer the most pressing questions important to elevate care for individuals with melanoma today and tomorrow,” says Dr. Kim. He notes the next steps of their research will include studying mRNA-type vaccines to treat melanoma. They will also test optimal use of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte, or TIL, therapy for advanced melanoma.
Dr. Shawn Kile
Helping Slow Alzheimer’s Disease’s Progression
Dr. Shawn Kile, a researcher, neurologist and director of the Sutter Health Memory Clinic at Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento collaborates with a team of scientists and physicians at Sutter studying new ways to treat and even prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Risk of the Alzheimer’s increases with age. As people live longer, more people are developing this often-devastating illness that affects the entire family. “At Sutter Health we’re bolstering our efforts to bring whole-person focused, personalized care to individuals with dementia and their families, delivering new science and solutions to approach the disease from all angles,” says Dr. Kile.
A new generation of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – lecanemab in July 2023 and more recently donanemab – are the first to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. They engage the immune system to remove beta-amyloid plaques that accumulate in the brains of patients with the illness. “The earlier these treatments are started, the more benefit there is at slowing the rate of disease progression,” says Dr. Kile.
Based on findings from the TRAILBLAZER-ALZ2 clinical trial, the FDA approved donanemab for the treatment of adults with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia stages of Alzheimer’s disease. At the Ray Dolby Brain Health Center at CPMC, Sutter is participating in a clinical trial testing the potential of donanemab to prevent memory loss and cognitive decline before it starts.
Dr. Kile is also studying the potential of intravenous immune globulin. It is a type of immunotherapy approved for the treatment of certain autoimmune diseases. It slows the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by decreasing levels of the beta amyloid proteins believed to catalyze disease progression.
Fostering Research in Tomorrow’s Leading Physicians
Sutter resident Dr. Nasrin Dhapa poses in front of a research poster
Sutter residents and fellows presented the results of their research, with studies aimed at addressing a broad range of pressing health concerns. Studies included new ways to better treat hepatitis and kidney disease, strategies for improved colorectal cancer screening, novel insights to understand and help address racial disparities in lung disease and in COVID-19, and methods to improve whole-person healthcare for obese individuals.
Dr. Lindsay Mazotti, and researcher Maria Pallavicini
“Medical education at Sutter Health plays a critical role in training tomorrow’s leading physician-scholars. They are the physicians who will advocate for our patients in communities big and small, conduct leading-edge research to address patients’ unmet health needs, and champion and deliver whole-person healthcare across Sutter’s diverse communities,” says Dr. Lindsay Mazotti, Sutter’s chief medical officer of medical education and science. “We encourage and support resident and fellow physician research as vital not only to their education, but to Sutter’s commitment to training the best and brightest physicians and researchers now—and well into the future.”
