Sam S. Yoon, MD

My main goal is to provide each patient with the absolute best care for his or her particular disease. Thus I am part of multidisciplinary teams of medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pathologists, and other medical professionals who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with sarcomas or gastroesophageal cancers. I also strive to constantly improve and expand my own surgical skills. This has involved adopting new minimally invasive techniques such as laparoscopic resection of gastric tumors and intra-abdominal sarcomas as well as traveling to other specialty centers around the world. To understand how our results compare to those of other institutions, I have authored numerous articles on the outcomes of patients with various sarcomas (e.g., retroperitoneal and pelvic sarcomas, extremity and trunk sarcomas, and angiosarcomas) and gastroesophageal cancers (e.g., gastric adenocarcinoma, hereditary diffuse gastric cancer syndrome, and gastrointestinal stromal tumors).

Clinical research is a fundamental part of providing outstanding patient care. I am the principal investigator for a translational research laboratory that examines the role of the tumor blood vessels in controlling the growth, metastasis, and radiation response of sarcomas and gastroesophageal cancers. My laboratory is currently funded by an R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute and has previously been funded by several foundations including the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Society for Surgical Oncology. One consistent finding made by several research groups including ours is that blocking vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in tumors improves the efficacy of radiation therapy. We recently completed a clinical trial examining the role of bevacizumab (a drug that inhibits VEGF) and radiation in the preoperative treatment of resectable sarcomas. This trial demonstrated that bevacizumab markedly improves the tumor-killing effects of radiation for sarcomas and served as the basis for an upcoming multi-institutional trial of VEGF-inhibition and radiation being developed jointly by the Children’s Oncology Group and the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group.