Charles Powell, MD, chief of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and chair of the American Thoracic Society's thoracic oncology assembly is available to comment on the upcoming announcement of a preliminary decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to cover lung cancer screening with low dose computed tomography (LDCT).

“LDCT has been shown to reduce mortality when used to screen individuals who are at high risk for developing lung cancer because of their age and smoking history,” said Dr. Powell. “While there is some risk of overdiagnosis, it is outweighed by the mortality benefit that has been demonstrated with screening targeted groups of high-risk patients. Ongoing refinement of screening protocols, including the use of new biomarkers, will help identify patients who would benefit most from screening, and will further reduce the risk of overdiagnosis. Thoughtful implementation of lung cancer screening with strict attention to monitoring of screening program adherence to standards for centers of excellence and with routine utilization of smoking cessation and multidisciplinary management will help to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of screening.”

With clinical and research interests in lung cancer and mesothelioma, Dr. Powell’s investigations center on understanding the genetic and susceptibility factors for these diseases, and the molecular events that are important in the early stages of lung cancer development and progression. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award and election to the Fleischner Society.

Dr. Powell received his MD from the University of Chicago, completed his residency in internal medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, and completed a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care at Boston University.

His publications include:

Borczuk AC, Sole M, Lu P, Chen J, Wilgus ML, Friedman RA, Albelda SM, Powell CA. Progression of human bronchioloalveolar carcinoma to invasive adenocarcinoma is modeled in a transgenic mouse model of K-ras-induced lung cancer by loss of the TGF-β type II receptor. Cancer Res. 2011 Nov 1;71(21):6665-75.

Yatabe Y, Borczuk AC, Powell CA. Do all lung adenocarcinomas follow a stepwise progression? Lung Cancer. 2011 Oct;74(1):7-11.

Toonkel RL, Borczuk AC, Powell CA. Tgf-beta signaling pathway in lung adenocarcinoma invasion. J Thorac Oncol. 2010 Feb;5(2):153-7.

Borczuk AC, Qian F, Kazeros A, Eleazar J, Assaad A, Sonett JR, Ginsburg M, Gorenstein L, Powell CA. Invasive size is an independent predictor of survival in pulmonary adenocarcinoma. Am J Surg Pathol. 2009 Mar;33(3):462-9.

Borczuk AC, Powell CA. Expression profiling and lung cancer development. Proc Am Thorac Soc. 2007 Jan;4(1):127-32. Review.

Mujoomdar A, Austin JH, Malhotra R, Powell CA, Pearson GD, Shiau MC, Raftopoulos H. Clinical predictors of metastatic disease to the brain from non-small cell lung carcinoma: primary tumor size, cell type, and lymph node metastases. Radiology. 2007 Mar;242(3):882-8

Borczuk AC, Kim HK, Yegen HA, Friedman RA, Powell CA. Lung adenocarcinoma global profiling identifies type II transforming growth factor-beta receptor as a repressor of invasiveness. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2005 Sep 15;172(6):729-37.

Past media appearances include The Daily News, and Medpage Today,

Contact information:

Charles A. Powell, M.D.Janice and Coleman Rabin Professor and Chief, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep MedicineIcahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1232New York, N.Y. 10029Email: [email protected]

MEDIA CONTACT
Register for reporter access to contact details