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About the Program
Laura J. Esserman, M.D.,
M.B.A.
Professor of Surgery & Radiology
Chief, Section of Breast Care Surgery
Director, UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care
Center
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Laura J. Esserman, M.D., M.B.A.
Professor of Surgery and Radiology
Division of General Surgery
Chief, Section of Breast Care Surgery
Director, UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center
Contact Information
BiographyEducation
- 1974-77, Harvard University, A.B.
- 1978-83, Stanford University, M.D.
Residencies
- 1983-85, Stanford University School of Medicine, Resident, General Surgery
- 1988-90, Stanford University School of Medicine, Resident, General Surgery
- 1990-91, Stanford University School of Medicine, Chief Resident, General Surgery
Fellowships
- 1985-88, Stanford University School of Medicine, Postdoctoral Fe, Oncology, Medical
Postdoctoral Training
- 1991-93, Stanford University, M.B.A.
Board Certification
- American Board of Surgery - General Surgery - 1992
Program Affiliations
- UCSF Carol Frank Buck Breast Care Center
- UCSF Center of Excellence for Breast Cancer Care
- UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center
Research Interests
- Breast Diseases
- Breast Neoplasms
- Cancer Vaccines
- Genes
- Intraductal Carcinoma
- Male
- Mammary
- Mastectomy
- Noninfiltrating Carcinoma Lobular
- Oncogenes
- Precancerous Conditions
- Segmental
- Tumor Suppressor
- Ultrasonography
- BRCA1 Protein
- BRCA2 Protein
- Infiltrating Duct Carcinoma
Biography
Dr. Laura Esserman, M.D., M.B.A is a surgeon and breast cancer oncology specialist practicing at the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center where she has also held the position of Director since 1996. She co-leads the Breast Oncology Program, the largest of the UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center's multidisciplinary programs. The program is comprised of 69 faculty members who represent 16 academic specialties and is internationally recognized and well-established with major initiatives in epidemiology, genetics, biology, therapeutics, and clinical cancer care. She is a professor of Surgery & Radiology at UCSF and Associate Director of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center where she has founded and led the program in Translational Informatics. As part of this program, her research has focused on bioinformatics, medical and clinical informatics, systems integration, and clinical care delivery.
Dr. Esserman received her Bachelor's degree in History of Science from Harvard University and completed her M.D. at Stanford University. She completed her surgery residency and oncology fellowship at Stanford University Medical Center. After her training, she joined the faculty at Stanford and received a Hartford fellowship to attend Stanford Business School where she received her M.B.A. in 1993. She then joined the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco. She has worked at UCSF to develop interdisciplinary teams of clinicians and researchers to bring the best care to patients and find the best platform to integrate translational research and improve the delivery of breast cancer care.
Dr. Esserman has been a leader in the I-SPY TRIAL collaboration, a National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Center for Bioinformatics and SPORE program. In 2005, she received the NCI SPORE Investigator of the Year Award, an internationally recognized honor and designation. As the Primary Investigator of a Department of Defense-funded Center of Excellence grant, she has also brought together an extraordinary, multidisciplinary group of investigators and health care industry partners to work on critical problems concerning the quality of breast cancer care. Highly respected by her peers, Dr. Esserman was named to the list of U.S. News "America's Top Doctors," a distinction reserved for the top 1% of physicians in the nation for a given specialty.
Dr. Esserman is a prolific writer with numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals covering all aspects of breast health including information systems, immunology, decision making, health policy and the use of imaging. She speaks extensively at public and private forums within the U.S. and internationally. Overall, Dr. Esserman's research and writing tends to focus on the goal of giving patients better access to accurate information so that they can become partners in their health care.
Selected Publications
- Esserman LJ, Ozanne EM, Dowsett M, Slingerland JM. Tamoxifen may prevent both ER+ and ER- breast cancers and select for ER- carcinogenesis: an alternative hypothesis. Breast Cancer Res. 7: R1153-8, 2005.
- Misell LM, Hwang ES, Au A, Esserman L, Hellerstein MK. Development of a novel method for measuring in vivo breast epithelial cell proliferation in humans. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 89: 257-64, Feb/2005.
- Daly MB, Axilbund JE, Bryant E, Buys S, Eng C, Friedman S, Esserman LJ, Farrell CD, Ford JM, Garber JE, Jeter JM, Kohlmann W, Lynch PM, Marcom PK, Nabell LM, Offit K, Osarogiagbon RU, Pasche B, Reiser G, Sutphen R, Weitzel JN. Genetic/familial high-risk assessment: breast and ovarian. J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 4: 156-76, Feb/2006.
- Ozanne EM, Klemp JR, Esserman LJ. Breast cancer risk assessment and prevention: a framework for shared decision-making consultations. Breast J. 12: 103-13
- Tan YY, Wu CT, Fan YG, Hwang S, Ewing C, Lane K, Esserman L, Lu Y, Treseler P, Morita E, Leong SP. Primary tumor characteristics predict sentinel lymph node macrometastasis in breast cancer. Breast J. 11: 338-43
In the News
Twenty-Five Department of Surgery Faculty Named to U.S. News “Top Doctors†List
U.S. News - Mar 01, 2012In its most recent survey, U.S. News in collaboration with Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. listed twenty-five (25) surgeons in the UCSF Department of Surgery, nearly one-third (1/3) of the clinical faculty, on the list of U.S. News "Top Doctors". The list, compiled from the opinion of colleagues, denotes the top 10% of physicians within a region practicing a given specialty. Fifteen of the 25 department surgeons were also named by their peers to the list of America's Top Doctors (ATD), a distinction reserved for the top 1% of physicians in the nation for that specialty. The listings are published online at U.S. News. The group rankings are intended to guide patients in selecting a doctor and physicians in making specialty referrals.
Laura Esserman & Hope Rugo Featured as Pioneers in Breast Cancer Research
UCSF Department of Surgery & PBS Video - Mar 25, 2011UCSF breast surgeon Laura J. Esserman, M.D., M.B.A., and medical oncologist Hope S. Rugo, M.D. are featured on PBS' "Need to Know" series as pioneers in breast cancer research. Dr. Esserman discussed the I-SPY 2 TRIAL in which pharmaceutical companies collaboratively bring multiple experimental therapies to the marketplace, allowing numerous combinations novel agents to be tested in clinical trials iteratively. Specific drug combinations are personalized to the molecular characteristics of each patient's tumor using sophisticated biomarker assays. Dr. Rugo is leading a study to improve the quality of life in chemotherapy patients through a new treatment that cools the scalp and prevents or minimizes hair loss.
Why Women Might Not Need A Mammogram
Health Magazine - Oct 01, 2010"Last October, she (Laura Esserman, MD) and a urology colleague [Ian Thompson, MD] published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that sounded an alarm about what she calls "the elephant in the room"- the rarely-talked-about downsides of routine breast and prostate cancer screening. Routine mammograms, their article said, find too many unusual-looking clusters of cells that turn out to be benign, leading to unnecessary biopsies (and, they argued in a later editorial, needless anxiety). What's more, all of our intensive screening efforts result in many women being treated for tumors that might never have become life-threatening."
SF Chronicle Profiles Dr. Laura Esserman
UCSF News Office - San Francisco Chronicle - Jul 20, 2009
Laura Esserman, M.D.,
M.B.A. is profiled in the San Francisco
Chronicle: her upbringing in Chicago, research and
operatic talents - she sings a patient's requested song as general
anesthesia is being administered. The story also recounts
the story of breast cancer survivor Jessica Galloway, a mother of
three, diagnosed with the disease in 2005; she is now
assisting Esserman in a UCSF peer-support program." Dr. Laura Esserman (left) meets with patient Jessica Galloway at UCSF Mt. Zion. Photo provided courtesy of (Paul Chinn / The SF Chronicle).
