Four years after being diagnosed with breast cancer, Cassandra Chaytor still remembers the thought that crossed her mind when she learned she had cancer.

It was not about herself.

It was about her children.

“I have to come out OK,” she recalled telling her physician. “I have to be here for my children.”

At the time, her daughter Lydia was 12, and her son Archer was 8. Overnight, life became a series of appointments, treatments, surgeries and difficult conversations. Alongside the physical challenges came the emotional weight of helping her children navigate a reality none of them expected.

Tears in the grocery store

Some memories remain vivid.

Chaytor was grocery shopping with Archer, masked and wearing a scarf on her head, when a woman looked at them and began to cry.

Archer immediately understood why.

“He was so upset that we abandoned our cart and left the store,” Chaytor said.

For Chaytor, the manager of Clinic Operations at Vanderbilt Eye Institute in Franklin, the moment was a reminder that cancer affects entire families, not just the person diagnosed.

“It was incredibly hard for my children,” she said. “They were walking through it with me.”

Early in her cancer experience, Chaytor met with Vandana Abramson, MD, Professor of Medicine and Co-Leader of the Breast Cancer Research Program at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

“She gave me the facts and a clear plan, but she also gave me hope,” Chaytor said. “She’s one of the leading experts in her field, yet she approaches patients with incredible warmth, reassurance and encouragement. That meant so much during such a frightening time.”

What followed was a series of treatments that included a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, a mastectomy and reconstruction. Through it all, Chaytor remained focused on being present for her children and finding the strength to move forward.

Care along the way

As difficult as treatment was, what stands out most to Chaytor today is the care she received along the way.

One experience in particular remains especially meaningful.

On the morning of her mastectomy, overwhelmed by fear, Chaytor broke down just before being taken into surgery.

“I was sobbing uncontrollably,” she recalled.

Her surgeon, Ingrid Meszoely, MD, sat next to her, put her arm around her, and held her as she cried.

“She held me until I was ready to go back,” Chaytor said. “In one of the hardest moments of my life, her compassion meant everything to me. I’ll never forget it.”

Those experiences reinforced something Chaytor has always believed: People may forget details, but they never forget how they are treated during their most vulnerable moments.

“I’ve always believed in leading with empathy and kindness,” Chaytor said. “But walking in a patient’s shoes reinforced just how much every interaction matters.”

As she moved through treatment, Chaytor found herself paying close attention to the infusion team.

“They handle so many emotions every single day,” she said. “Watching how they supported patients, families and one another gave me an even deeper appreciation for what they do.”

That appreciation took on new meaning when a nurse asked Chaytor to speak with another patient who needed someone to talk to. That conversation became a turning point.

“It helped me realize that sharing my experience could help someone else feel less alone,” she said.

The story of countless others

Since then, Chaytor has embraced opportunities to support and encourage others facing cancer, whether through advocacy, community involvement or simply sharing her story.

“This affects so many women,” she said. “It’s my story, but it’s also the story of countless others. Even when you’re surrounded by support, there can be a loneliness that’s hard to describe. If sharing my experience helps even one person feel less alone, then something meaningful can come from what I went through.”

After returning to work, Chaytor shared her story with her team, reflecting on the importance of kindness, self-care and recognizing the impact every person can have on a patient’s experience.

“Every interaction matters. Every role matters. The way we treat patients and one another stays with people long after the moment has passed.”

Today, Chaytor is a survivor, advocate and health care leader who continues to draw on her experience to support others.

“Cancer is part of my story, but it is not what defines me,” she said. “What stays with me most is the care I received and the opportunity to help others feel less alone.

“There is hope, and there is always someone willing to walk beside you.”

And she makes a final pitch: She hopes others will join her in participating in or contributing to Team Vanderbilt’s efforts at this year’s Susan G. Komen More Than Pink Walk, on Oct. 3.

The post Cassandra Chaytor uses her breast cancer experience to support patients, families and her community appeared first on Vanderbilt Health News.

Vanderbilt Health has received a five-year, $3.4 million Academic-Industrial Partnership grant from the National Cancer Institute to support development of magnetic resonance (MR) cytometry as a new tool for breast cancer imaging.

MR cytometry is a magnetic resonance imaging technology pioneered by Vanderbilt Health investigators that provides information about tumor microstructure which cannot be obtained from conventional MRI.

Junzhong Xu, PhD, Director of Cancer Imaging Research at the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science (VUIIS), is principal investigator of the project. He will work with VUIIS Director John Gore, PhD, and with grant co-investigator Ryan Robison, PhD, MR Clinical Science Leader for North America at Philips Healthcare.

The investigators will integrate the technique into existing clinical MRI systems and develop a quality control system to support consistent use across scanners and institutions. They will then work with researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle to evaluate this technology in clinical breast cancer imaging.

This project “represents an important step in translating a Vanderbilt-developed imaging technology into a tool that could eventually be used in routine clinical care,” Xu said. “Working closely with Philips allows us to address the technical challenges required to move the method beyond a research environment and toward broader clinical use.”

Despite significant advances in early detection and treatment in recent years, breast cancer remains a leading cause of cancer mortality in women. Tissue biopsies provide essential diagnostic information but may provide an incomplete picture of the tumor and are difficult to repeat frequently over the course of treatment.

MR cytometry uses advanced diffusion MRI technology, including oscillating gradient spin echo, to probe how water molecules move within tumors at micrometer length scales. Advanced data acquisition and analysis of this movement enable researchers to estimate mean cell size and cell density noninvasively.

Combining biopsy findings with MR cytometry could give clinicians a more complete picture of a tumor and potentially help guide treatment decisions.

“The ability to measure cell size, cell density and other microstructural features using oscillating gradient diffusion imaging is immensely exciting, given its potential to monitor disease progression and inform clinical decision-making,” Robison said.

“Working alongside Dr. Xu and the team at VUIIS is a tremendous privilege, as they are the pioneers of this technique and are widely recognized as the world leaders in its development, validation and clinical translation,” he said.

“We have had a strong relationship with Philips for over 20 years, and it is encouraging to obtain funding that will be of mutual benefit and help patients,” said Gore, University Distinguished Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, and holder of the Hertha Ramsey Cress Chair in Medicine.

Xu, Associate Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, said MR cytometry has the potential to be applied to imaging other cancers and diseases in which changes in cellular microstructure are important.

The NCI Academic-Industrial Partnership grant (R01CA308592) supporting the research is designed to move promising technologies toward clinical use through collaborations between academic and industry partners.

The post Vanderbilt Health receives $3.4 million grant to advance breast cancer imaging appeared first on Vanderbilt Health News.

Following the introduction of a surgical protocol that leveraged intraoperative imaging with a combination PET-CT scanner to assess the success of head and neck cancer resection, surgeons have used the technology for breast cancer.

Investigators led by Michael Topf, MD, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, performed the nation’s first surgery using intraoperative PET-CT scanning in September 2025. Now, a surgical team led by Denise Garcia, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology and Endocrine Surgery, has applied the technology to successfully resect a breast cancer mass.

“This application of intraoperative PET-CT is proof that countless patients can benefit from the expansion of this novel imaging methodology,” said Garcia. “Our team is proud to apply it to a type of tumor that has not yet been imaged for the purposes of assessing margin status. As our institution expands treatment methodologies to more types of cancer, we can cure more patients and give them peace of mind that their surgery has been completed with precision. This technological advancement underscores the success we’ve had across multiple disciplines in working toward that goal.”

Rapid expansion of intraoperative PET-CT scanning boosts efficiency, offers peace of mind to surgeons and patients alike

With each new application, surgeons are demonstrating that an intraoperative PET-CT imaging protocol can help reduce wait time for results from several days to a matter of minutes and allow surgical teams to know immediately whether they need to continue operating.

During surgery, the patient receives a dose of a radioactive agent that illuminates the cancer tissue in the scanner. Once the tumor is excised, it is placed in a specialized mobile PET-CT scanner called an Aura 10 device, developed and supplied by Belgium-based surgical technology company Xeos. The scanner negates the need to send the specimen to the pathology lab, providing surgical teams with a real-time view and allowing them to quickly determine if the entire cancerous mass was removed.

If any mass remains, the operation continues. If the cancer has been successfully resected, the surgery concludes, and the patient is sent home with peace of mind, knowing they won’t need to return for a follow-up surgery, and with confidence that their surgeons have a precise, immediate look at the results of the surgery. Because patients receive the radioactive agent on the day of surgery rather than in advance, they also receive a lower dose of radiation.

The post Vanderbilt Health performs nation’s first breast cancer surgery using intraoperative PET-CT scan technology appeared first on Vanderbilt Health News.

Immunotherapy has become a standard of care in treating high-risk, early-stage breast cancers, yet it has had limited success in shrinking tumors. New biomarkers that can improve outcomes for patients are urgently needed.

Now, a study led by researchers at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has found that repeated blood sampling — essentially, a liquid biopsy — can assess and predict the evolving antitumor immune response to therapy.

This minimally invasive and cost-effective alternative to tissue biopsy offers “an accessible tool for tailoring treatment strategies in breast cancer,” they reported April 22 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The researchers performed RNA sequencing on 546 peripheral blood samples from 160 patients with high-risk, stages 2 or 3 breast cancers negative for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) during treatment with either chemotherapy alone or in combination with immunotherapy.

Justin Balko, PhD, PharmD, professor of Medicine and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt Health and the paper’s corresponding author, acknowledged several co-authors — investigators from the nationwide I-SPY2 clinical trial — who, among other contributions to the study, provided the blood samples.

Molecular profiles of tissue plus circulating tumor DNA can better guide cancer care

Co-author Laura Esserman, MD, MBA, director of the Breast Care Center at the University of California, San Francisco, is principal investigator of the I-SPY2 trial, which is assessing novel treatment strategies for subsets of breast cancer based on their molecular characteristics (biomarker signatures). Vanderbilt Health is among 42 trial locations.

Cell-free DNA testing, another form of liquid biopsy, is routinely used clinically for detection, diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of a variety of malignancies.

Balko and his colleagues sampled the transcriptome, the transcription of genes involved in the clonal expansion and activation of antitumor immune cells called T cells. They found it predicted response to the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab.

While validation is needed, this new liquid biopsy has the potential to “guide immunotherapy decision-making, tailor treatment regimens, and advance precision oncology, not only in (breast cancer) but potentially in other solid tumors as well,” the researchers concluded.

The paper’s first author, Xiaopeng Sun, PhD, is now at Merck. Co-authors at Vanderbilt Health are Andres Ocampo, Jacey Marshall and Julia Steele, graduate students in the Vanderbilt Program in Cancer Biology, and Susan Opalenik, PhD, senior research supervisor in the Balko lab.

The study was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants P50CA098131, PO1CA210961, R01CA255442, U54CA274502, P30CA082103, P30CA068485 and NIH/NCI Imaging grant 28XS197 P-0518835), a Department of Defense Era of Hope Award, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Breast Cancer Research — Atwater Trust, Stand Up To Cancer, the California Breast Cancer Research Program and Give Breast Cancer the Boot.

The post Liquid biopsy predicts response to breast cancer immunotherapy appeared first on Vanderbilt Health News.

Black women in the United States are less likely than white women to be diagnosed with breast cancer, yet they are more likely to die from the disease.

In a study of more than 1,000 women, researchers at Vanderbilt Health and Agendia, which specializes in genomic testing, found that Black women were more likely to have early, high-risk breast cancer that is hormone receptor positive (HR+) and negative for the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2-).

These findings, reported March 19 in the Nature partner journal npj Breast Cancer, highlight the critical need for tumor genomic testing for all patients to identify those with high-risk tumors, which occur more frequently in Black women, and which require more aggressive treatment to prevent recurrence.

“By moving beyond traditional clinicopathologic features and incorporating genomic classification, we can more accurately identify biologically aggressive disease and tailor more precise, personalized treatment,” said the paper’s corresponding author, Sonya Reid, MD, MPH, associate professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt Health.

“The risk of recurrence of breast cancer in Black women has often been underestimated by traditional clinical features, driven largely by their underrepresentation in clinical trials,” study co-author William Audeh, MD, Agendia’s Chief Medical Officer, said in a news release.

“By providing a genomic assessment of tumor biology, we can ensure that women with breast cancer will receive individualized care that improves their long-term outcomes,” Audeh said. The collaboration with Vanderbilt Health “underscores our shared commitment to bringing precision medicine to all women.”

The research included 1,018 women with HR+, HER2- early-stage breast cancer who were enrolled in the Breast Cancer Etiology, Survival and Treatment Outcomes (BEST) study, and the Full-genome Data Linked with Clinical Data to Evaluate New Gene Expression Profiles (FLEX) study.

The BEST study is a population-based observational cohort of women identified through state cancer registries in Florida and Tennessee who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2015. FLEX is a multicenter, prospective observational study of genomic profiling and its impact on prognosis, treatment decisions and clinical outcomes.

The researchers applied two RNA-based technologies developed by Agendia to evaluate tumors: “MammaPrint,” which analyzes the 70 most important genes associated with breast cancer recurrence, and “BluePrint,” which classifies tumors into subtypes based on an expression profile of 80 different genes.

They found that Black women had a higher proportion of genomically high-risk luminal B and basal-type tumors compared to white women and that survival at three years was determined by the molecular subtype of their tumors.

“Understanding the biological and tumor genomic differences by race could improve treatment decisions and promote optimal care for Black females with early-stage breast cancer,” the researchers concluded, “ultimately improving long-term outcomes.”

Co-authors from Vanderbilt Health were Lindsay Venton, Jennifer Whisenant, PhD, Anne Weidner, MPH, and Tuya Pal, MD.

The post Genomic testing finds a higher prevalence of high-risk breast cancer in Black women appeared first on Vanderbilt Health News.

Actress Nicole Kidman knows the impact when someone you love has cancer. For her, it was her mother, when Kidman was only in her teens.

Kidman’s mother lived another 40 years, for which she is grateful. The experience caring for her mother — and being able to have her mother for decades more — drives Kidman’s commitment to advancing breast cancer research.

Kidman recently donated her time, voice and influence to support breast cancer research at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. She recorded a video alongside her friend Vandana Abramson, MD, co-leader of Vanderbilt Ingram’s Breast Cancer Research Program, sharing her story for Breast Cancer Awareness Month and beyond. The video has been posted on VICC Facebook and Instagram channels, and Kidman amplified it with her 25 million fans on Instagram and Facebook.

“We’re so grateful for the support of Nicole Kidman in raising awareness for breast cancer research at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center,” Abramson said. “Nicole witnessed her mother’s journey as a breast cancer patient, and this has inspired her to help others find healing and strength. You can stand with Nicole — and stand with us — in the fight against breast cancer. Your gift fuels research that leads to breakthroughs. It helps us personalize treatments, reduce side effects and offer hope where there was once uncertainty. It brings us closer to a world where breast cancer is no longer a life-altering diagnosis.”

We hope you’ll watch the video and share it with your family and friends on your own social media, email or other channels. To see the video, learn more and help make an impact, visit GiveToVICC.org.

In addition to this video, Kidman has also donated her time and support to be “the voice” for Vanderbilt Health’s upcoming brand advertising campaign, which will launch later this fall.

The post Join Nicole Kidman in supporting breast cancer research and care appeared first on VUMC News.

Early detection of lymphedema, which occurs in 20% of patients following breast cancer treatment, may improve therapeutic options for patients.

A new study shows men with breast cancer are more likely to die than their female counterparts, across all stages of disease.

A study published last year offered good news for women with early-stage ER-positive breast cancer who scored at intermediate risk for recurrence. However, a new study finds this conclusion may not directly apply to male patients with the same type of breast cancer

Genetic analyses suggest that high circulating HDL-cholesterol levels may increase breast cancer risk — a surprising finding since increased HDL-cholesterol is thought to be healthy.