As the conference season gets into full swing, an esteemed faculty member gave us a head start in the awards count. Clinical Associate Professor Michael Brunner, M.D., FSIR, FACR, brought home two accolades from the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) 40th Annual Meeting.
Brunner co-wrote a paper with Assistant Professor Sharon Kwan of the University of Washington, entitled “An Economic Analysis of Sublobar Resection versus Thermal Ablation for Early-Stage Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer“. The paper was published in the August edition of the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology (JVIR) and was the second manuscript published by the pair in 2014.
The study compared medical costs for Medicare patients undergoing two different treatments for lung cancer. When comparing thermal ablation with sub-lobar resection, the study found ablation to be more than $16,000 cheaper according to median treatment costs. The paper received the Editor’s Honoree Award, one of only six handed out at the conference.
The pair had an additional article published in the January issue of JVIR, entitled “Thermal Ablation Matches Sublobar Resection Outcomes in Older Patients with Early-stage Non–small Cell Lung Cancer“. This paper was recognized as JVIR’s “Most Outstanding Clinical Research Paper of 2014”. Furthermore, Kwan won the SIR Gary J. Becker Young Investigator Award, an award that recognizes promising practitioners of interventional medicine early in their careers.
Brunner has strong ties to the SIR, serving as President from 2003-2004, and is currently leading their Data Assessment Workgroup. The SIR is a national organization of physicians, scientists and allied health professionals dedicated to improving public health through disease management and minimally invasive, image-guided therapeutic interventions.