Innovative Approaches to Addressing Exercise Intolerance Among Cancer Survivors

Instructor, Health Behavior and Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Dr Lenihan has been active in cardio-oncology and heart failure, for over 20 years. The main focus of these efforts have included hemodynamic assessments, angiogenic growth factor response, novel cardiac biomarkers as well as optimal methods to prevent or detect heart failure at the earliest stage possible in patients undergoing treatment for cancer. His current research projects include early phase clinical trials in cardio-oncology, heart failure and amyloidosis. He is the Principal Investigator of the PROTECT study looking at cardiac safety in patients undergoing proteasome inhibitor treatment for relapsed multiple myeloma and the recently completed PREDICT study, a large multicenter prospective study examining the role of cardiac biomarkers for the detection of cardiotoxicity during anthracycline based therapy. In addition, he is intimately involved in the latest treatment trials for cardiac amyloidosis. He was recently at Washington University in St Louis to enhance and expand the Cardio-Oncology Center of Excellence. He is at the forefront of concerted efforts to develop a viable Cardio-Oncology fellowship training program and continues to foster collaboration among a host of colleagues both regionally, nationally, and throughout the world. He is the current President of the International Cardio-Oncology Society (ICOS),www.IC-OS.org, which is an international professional association whose primary goal is to eliminate cardiac disease as a barrier to effective cancer therapy.

Dr. Giselle C. Meléndez is an MD-scientist at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston Salem, NC. Through basic science, translational, and clinical studies, Dr. Meléndez is deeply committed to improving the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of cardiac complications of cancer therapies and identifying novel interventions to prevent and treat cardiotoxicity in cancer survivors. Specifically, her research focuses on the contribution of extracellular matrix remodeling, inflammation, and cardiac fibrosis to the development of left ventricular dysfunction. She serves as an investigator in clinical trials employing cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging to evaluate subclinical cardiac tissue characteristics; she has adapted these clinical CMR techniques to her pre-clinical rodent and non-human primate models cardiotoxicity to enhance the translatability of her research. Additionally, Dr. Meléndez serves as a peer reviewer of numerous prestigious journals, she is a standing member of the National Institute of Health (NIH), Therapeutic Development and Preclinical Studies study section and she is currently funded by grants from the NIH.

Joseph R. Carver, MD, FACC is a Board Certified cardiologist. He is the Founding Editor of the American Journal of Managed Care and was a Senior Corporate Medical Director at Aetna U.S. Healthcare from 1992-2001 where he was responsible for new program development and directed the National Medical Excellence Program. From 1999-2001, he was Co-chairperson of the New Jersey and Michigan Working Groups that established voluntary agreements among the insurers in those states to cover the routine costs of clinical trial participation for cancer patients. He is one of the Founding Editors of Cardio-oncology Journal. He currently is the Bernard Fishman Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, the Chief Operating Officer of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania and the Chief of Staff of the Abramson Cancer Center. He is the Director of the Thalheimer Cardio-oncology Center at the Abramson Cancer Center and his clinical practice is in the subspecialty of Cardio-oncology. He was the recipient of the IS Ravdin Master Clinician Award at Penn in 2012 and is one of the founding members of Penn Medicine’s Academy of Master Clinicians. He received the Thomas Force Award in 2020.

Assistant Professor, Cardiology, Virginia Commonwealth University