James A. Eastham has been named Chief of the Urology Service in the Department of Surgery and the incumbent of the Florence and Theodore Baumritter/Enid Ancell Chair of Urologic Oncology. He also serves as co-leader of the Genitourinary Disease Management Team and chair of the Department of Surgery Protocol Committee.
A board-certified urologic surgeon, Dr. Eastham specializes in nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy for the treatment of prostate cancer and salvage radical prostatectomy for patients whose prostate cancer is not responsive to radiation therapy. His clinical research focuses on improving outcomes following surgery for prostate cancer. With his colleagues in medical oncology and radiation oncology, he is working to tailor therapy more accurately to each individual's cancer in order to both control its spread and decrease treatment-related side effects such as urinary incontinence and loss of sexual function.
Dr. Eastham received his MD degree in 1987 from the University of Southern California Medical School where he also completed his residency training in urology. He subsequently was a fellow in urologic oncology at Baylor College of Medicine. Prior to joining the MSKCC faculty in 2000, he was Director of Urologic Oncology at Louisiana State University Health Science Center and Chief of Urology at Overton-Brooks Veterans Administration Medical Center, both in Shreveport, Louisiana. At Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Dr. Eastham has directed the Urology Service's clinical research program for the past five years and has been associate director of the fellowship program in urologic oncology since 2003.
