Dr. Vaibhav Gupta (London Health Sciences Centre and Western University) told Canada's Catholic Register that Pope Leo XIV's prognosis is favourable, and that he expects the Pope to recover well.
Following Pope Leo XIV's diagnosis, Dr. Daniel Boffa (Yale) and Dr. Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang (Mass General Brigham) spoke with The New York Times about why so many eligible people still aren't screened for lung cancer, and how screening could better reach people at risk, including those who never smoked.
Dr. Robert Van Haren (University of Cincinnati) explained how lung adenocarcinoma, the type of cancer Pope Leo XIV was diagnosed with, is detected, staged, and treated.
Dr. Daniel Boffa (Yale) was quoted in The New York Times, explaining that a localized nodule treated first with surgery points to early-stage disease. He also discussed the diagnosis on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper and with WTNH News 8 in Connecticut.
Dr. Leah Backhus (Stanford) joined NBC Bay Area for a closer look at Pope Leo XIV's lung cancer diagnosis.
Dr. Seth Krantz (Endeavor Health) spoke with Chicago's WGN-TV about Pope Leo XIV's diagnosis and next steps, noting that when lung cancer is caught early, removing the nodule and sampling the lymph nodes usually means a very good outlook.
Dr. Brian Mitzman (Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah) explained lung cancer risk, detection, and minimally invasive surgery after Pope Leo XIV's diagnosis, stressing that early detection is the most important factor in survival.
Dr. Shanda Blackmon, director of the Lung Institute at Baylor, was featured in a Houston Chronicle story on thoracic endometriosis and the groundbreaking surgery she performed for a patient whose years of shoulder pain had stumped doctors.
Fox News Digital highlighted comments from Dr. Brooks Udelsman (Keck Medicine of USC) on what research shows about marijuana, vaping, and lung cancer risk.
Dr. Robert Meguid (University of Colorado) spoke with Denver7 about how UCHealth uses pafolacianine (Cytalux), a fluorescent imaging agent, to find lung cancers that CT scans and the naked eye can miss.
ThORN members had a strong showing at the 2026 STS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, with 33 members presenting, 9 serving as session chairs, and 61 total presentations.
Dr. Mara Antonoff (MD Anderson), president of Women in Thoracic Surgery, and Dr. Leah Backhus (Stanford) were featured in a New York Times story on women in cardiothoracic surgery.
Dr. Natalie Lui (Stanford) was quoted in a New York Times article on the growing share of lung cancers in people who have never smoked, discussing the trade-offs of screening never-smokers.
Thoracic surgeons from the European Institute of Oncology in Milan published a commentary on the ThORN wedge resection consensus in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, calling for multidisciplinary integration. Dr. Seth Krantz, the consensus's first author, published a reply in the same issue.
The MTSR now includes 16 institutions. First project underway: comparing neoadjuvant vs. peri-operative chemo-IO outcomes for resected NSCLC.
Dr. Linda Martin (UVA Health) spoke with NBC29 and CBS19 about Cytalux, an imaging agent that makes small lung nodules glow during surgery. UVA Health was the first in Virginia to use it.
ThORN published a consensus document in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery defining a high-quality wedge resection for early-stage lung cancer, involving 30 institutions and using a Delphi process.
ThORN members presented at the 2025 STS Annual Meeting on extent of resection and quality metrics in lung cancer care.
Consensus COVID-19 triage guidelines for thoracic operations were published in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.
ThORN co-led a session on quality measurement and hospital ratings systems at the STS Annual Meeting in San Diego.
