Surgical Oncology Excellence in the Lehigh Valley

Successful patient outcomes are commonly linked to a surgical oncologist's surgical volume and overall expertise.

This is particularly true for patients with gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies.

“There’s no replacement for volume and experience when it comes to treating GI cancers,” says surgical oncologist Jeffrey Brodsky, MD, with LVPG Surgical Oncology. “While completing hundreds of complex oncologic procedures, I’ve developed advanced expertise with surgical techniques, anatomy and anatomical variants.

Simply stated, this leads to better outcomes.” While some may look to academic centers in urban settings for this vast expertise, at Lehigh Valley Topper Cancer Institute, Brodsky and his colleagues have similar surgical volumes and offer many of the same advanced procedures, allowing patients to be treated closer to home

Brodsky and fellow surgical oncologist Aaron Blackham, MD, with LVPG Surgical Oncology, treat a full range of GI malignancies, including rarer conditions like small bowel tumors, retroperitoneal sarcomas and carcinoids.

Working with specialized clinical staff, they offer a wide array of surgical treatment options not often seen in a community setting, such as the Whipple procedure, cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) and esophagogastrectomy.

These procedures are routinely performed at our Cancer Institute, and for some disease sites, our GI surgical oncology team ranked among the top four in the state for surgical volumes between July 2019 and June 2020.

“In order to perform advanced GI procedures in tertiary community hospitals, you need amazing critical care support and advanced nursing care.” says Brodsky. “The teams at our Cancer Institute are the strongest I’ve worked with in over 30 years of practice.”

Brodsky follows a plane-based approach, which allows him to perform surgeries in less time and often lessens the intensity of patients’ recovery. “My surgical approach is focused on anatomy and tissue planes in the abdomen. It causes less trauma than blunt dissection,” Brodsky says. “Because of this, there is less bleeding. This in turn allows the surgical procedure to take less time, which recent medical literature has shown correlates with better results.”

There are many benefits to receiving cancer care in a community setting, including less travel and access to community resources.

In addition to this, Brodsky and his team are able to offer many surgical treatments to older patients and those with comorbidities who may find their options limited at other health care institutions.

“From the time I finished my fellowship, my goal was to bring complex surgical procedures to individuals in a community setting,” Brodsky says. “At Lehigh Valley Topper Cancer Institute, with the support of my colleagues and clinical staff, I am able to do that and more.”

For a Surgical Oncology Consultation, call 888-402-LVHN (5846).