SUMMARY
Mayo Clinic researcher Nguyen H. Tran, M.D., is a medical oncologist with expertise in hepatobiliary cancers, which are liver, gallbladder, and bile duct cancers. Her research focuses on biomarker discovery and evaluation in hepatobiliary cancers with the goal of providing patients more individualized therapeutic options with less toxicity.
Dr. Tran is particularly interested in identifying new markers that show a response to treatment through liquid biopsies. Her research also spans the spectrum of addressing barriers to cancer care and screening in minority patients, particularly Southeast Asian Americans. Dr. Tran works closely with community leaders within this community, and the Rochester Healthy Community Partnership, to address cancer issues of importance to the community. Her goal is to identify meaningful, acceptable, and lasting interventions that are codeveloped by the community to improve cancer care.
Focus areas
- Improving outcomes in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma with immunotherapy and new 68Ga PET imaging. Dr. Tran examines the role of prostate specific membrane antigen PET/CT imaging in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma receiving systemic treatment and assesses the response to treatment. The specific aim of this study is to test the performance of new biomarkers derived from prostate specific membrane antigen PET/CT. These biomarkers measure response compared to RECIST criteria in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma patients treated with immunotherapy. This study also identifies precision imaging and blood-based biomarkers that may predict and prognosticate new immunotherapy treatments. The RECIST criteria are a set of rules that measure how a patient's cancer responds to treatment.
- Futibatinib and pembrolizumab to treat advanced or metastatic fibroblast growth factor19 positive, Barcelona clinic liver cancer stage A, B or C. Dr. Tran assesses the efficacy of the new combination of futibatinib and pembrolizumab in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma for patients with FGF19 expression.
- Monitoring treatment response and prognostic outcomes with liquid biopsies in cholangiocarcinoma. Dr. Tran collaborates with John B. Kisiel, M.D., to investigate the use of a protein, mutation, methylated DNA, and aneuploidy markers platform to prognosticate and assess treatment response in patients with early-stage cholangiocarcinoma. The goal is to predict an early treatment response and to identify individuals at risk of recurrence.
- Eliminate disparities, including social factors, in liver cancer care for Southeast Asian Americans. Dr. Tran assesses the social determinants of health in people of Southeast Asian descent with hepatocellular carcinoma. She strives to identify specific barriers that may be addressed through interventions. Dr. Tran's work in this area includes evaluating viral hepatitis and liver cancer care.
- Improving cancer health in Southeast Asian communities. Dr. Tran partners with the Rochester Healthy Community Partnership and community leaders within the Southeast Asian American community. The goal of her work is to strengthen the ties to community, assess cancer-related topics of key interests to the community and to encourage engagement in cancer research. Dr. Tran's work in this area includes community-based participatory research studies of cancer screening, cancer care, and the study of viral hepatitis B.
Significance to patient care
Dr. Tran studies the role of new biomarkers in the treatment of hepatobiliary conditions such as those affecting the liver, gallbladder, and bile ducts. She researches these biomarkers in the general population and in minority groups. Dr. Tran finds solutions that may reach more individuals, improve screening, and give more personalized and tailored cancer care with less harm.