Scott J. Swanson, MD
Dr. Scott J. Swanson is an accomplished general and thoracic surgeon at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. He is the Director of Brigham & Women’s Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and serves as Chief Surgical Officer and Thoracic Oncology Disease Center Leader for the DFCI/BWH Thoracic Oncology Program.[1]
Dr. Swanson’s clinical interests include thoracic oncology, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, sarcoma, and thymoma. In addition to caring for patients, he works to advance the education and implementation of operations such as minimally invasive thoracoscopic lobectomy through national courses, the editing of The Atlas of Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery, and directing American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) focus courses on thoracic surgery.[2]
Education and Career
Dr. Swanson earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School, then went on to complete a General Surgery internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Following his residency, he completed a fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
He is Board-certified in both Surgery and Thoracic Surgery. Today, Dr. Swanson is the Director of the Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Chief Surgical Officer and Thoracic Oncology Disease Center Leader for the DFCI/BWH Thoracic Oncology Program. He is also Vice Chair for Clinical Cancer in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.[1]
Dr. Swanson serves on several advisory boards to further the education, training, and advancement of minimally invasive thoracic surgery. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American College of Surgeons.
Research
Dr. Swanson is actively involved in research focused on achieving a better understanding of early-stage lung cancer, its biologic fingerprint, and clinical behavior. To that end, he is overseeing the development of a comprehensive database that will link clinical variables with pathologic and biologic markers within specific tumors of interest. He has participated in numerous studies on the impact of different surgical techniques for malignant pleural mesothelioma and resectable lung cancer, including the articles listed below.[2]
- A Phase I Trial of Surgical Resection and Intraoperative Hyperthermic Cisplatin and Gemcitabine for Pleural Mesothelioma. J Thorac Oncol. 2018 Sep;13(9):1400-1409. doi: 10.1016/j.jtho.2018.04.032. Epub 2018 May 9. PMID: 29753120.
- Neoadjuvant nivolumab plus chemotherapy in resectable lung cancer. Forde, P.M., Spicer, J., Lu, S., Provencio, M., Mitsudomi, T., Awad, M.M., Felip, E., Broderick, S.R., Brahmer, J.R., Swanson, S.J. and Kerr, K., 2022. New England Journal of Medicine, 386(21), pp.1973-1985.
- Resection margins, extrapleural nodal status, and cell type determine postoperative long-term survival in trimodality therapy of malignant pleural mesothelioma: results in 183 patients. Sugarbaker DJ, Flores RM, Jaklitsch MT, Richards WG, Strauss GM, Corson JM, DeCamp Jr MM, Swanson SJ, Bueno R, Lukanich JM, Baldini EH. The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery. 1999 Jan 1;117(1):54-65.
