Nestor Ricardo Villamizar, MD
Dr. Villamizar is a cardiothoracic surgeon, thoracic surgeon, and thoracic surgical oncologist at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of Miami Medical School in Miami, Florida. He offers patients suffering from lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma access to the most up-to-date surgical techniques and treatment modalities for all diseases and conditions of the chest. Dr. Villamizar is also skilled in the application of HIPEC or Hyperthermic intraperitoneal and intrapleural chemotherapy.
Dr. Villamizar’s surgical capabilities include robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery, robotic-assisted total thymectomy, and complex airway reconstruction. He deploys these and other techniques in the treatment of locally advanced lung cancer, mesothelioma, mediastinal tumors, chest wall tumors, and esophageal cancers.[1]
Education and Career
Dr. Villamizar earned his medical degree at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Facultad de Medicina in Bogota, Columbia. He then went on to complete a residency in General Surgery at Duke University Medical Center and a fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.[1]
Today, in addition to his clinical and research roles, he is the director of Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Lung Cancer Screening Clinic where he helps to identify lung cancer at its earliest stages.
Research
Dr. Villamizar’s research interests are in lung cancer screening and malignant mesothelioma. He recently participated in a widely publicized study investigating the role that disparities in social determinants of health and access to treatment have in the overall survival (OS) of patients with operable malignant pleural mesothelioma. Previous studies have investigated the survival benefit of multiagent chemotherapy with and without curative surgery for malignant pleural mesothelioma, evaluating whether the addition of curative-intent surgery is associated with better survival over multiagent chemotherapy alone in a large population-based study.[2]
