Stacy Rissing, MD and Peter Gunderman, MD are two Indiana University School of Medicine faculty members who are helping aid in the fight against lung cancer in Indiana and across the country.
“Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, and last year about 3,200 Hoosiers died from lung cancer,” said Rissing, division chief of chest imaging and assistant professor with the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the IU School of Medicine.
Rissing and her family participated in the Indy 500 Parade with the End Lung Cancer Now team, walking alongside Indiana’s first and only mobile lung screening unit to raise awareness for lung cancer screening and early detection. A collaborative partnership between the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center and IU Health, the mobile lung screening program launched this past March.
“As thoracic radiologists, we could not be more excited,” Rissing said. “We are so grateful to be part of a health system that values preventative medicine and seeks to provide the highest level of care to everyone in our state. We are ready to serve our communities, support early detection, and change the story for lung cancer in our state.”
IU Health is expecting about 2,000 screening, low-dose chest CT scans to be performed in 2025 on this new mobile unit. Many of the patients screened will be from rural counties in Indiana, where low-dose lung cancer screening is not as readily available.
Gunderman, assistant professor in the department, is deeply involved with the IU lung cancer screening program as well. He is a member of the clinical operations subcommittee for IU Health’s lung cancer screening program and is actively engaged in shaping how the organization delivers care.
“I regularly participate in multidisciplinary thoracic tumor and lung cancer screening boards, where we collaborate to provide the best possible care for our patients, and have given peer-to-peer seminars at IU on navigating complex lung cancer screening cases,” Gunderman said.
He is also passionate about mentoring — working with high school students and residents alike. Currently, he is leading an effort to optimize the mobile lung cancer screening in rural Indiana, a collaborative effort with the Putnam County Department of Health.
Beyond his direct involvement in operations and research, Gunderman contributes to lung cancer screening through his scholarly work.
“I recently collaborated with a multidisciplinary group of physicians at IU School of Medicine to publish a review of the genomic and clinical characteristics of rare pulmonary tumors,” Gunderman said. “My most recent contribution is an article in the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) examining the shift in how national lung cancer screening rates are reported and challenges in interpreting national screening statistics. I'm also exploring the development of new clinical services, such as a lung tumor ablation program, to expand treatment options here at IU.”
