David Weinberg, MD, MSc

I joined the staff at Fox Chase Cancer Center in 2001 as director of gastroenterology. While my gastroenterology colleagues and I see many patients with cancers of all types, we are very happy to care for the gastrointestinal needs of patients without cancer as well.

I have a special interest in cancer prevention, especially for patients who are at average risk for gastrointestinal cancers. The current methods of gastrointestinal cancer prevention tools, like colonoscopy, are very effective. However, it is very likely that the next generation of screening techniques will be substantially better. Finding new ways to increase participation in screening programs and to use molecular or genetic markers to provide more accurate estimates of risk are particular interests of mine. Hopefully, finding such markers will allow for better targeting of screening and other risk reduction strategies now and in the future.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. Periodic screening can reduce the incidence and mortality from this disease. Unfortunately, screening is underutilized. Less than 50% of the U.S. population has been appropriately screened according to standard guidelines. The poor acceptance rate is particularly disappointing since no other common human malignancy represents such an appropriate target for cancer prevention. Effective strategies to increase screening rates, targeted towards patients or providers, have proven elusive. The major goals of our research program are the development of novel CRC risk stratification tools in average risk populations to facilitate more appropriate use of screening tests as well as investigating new methods to increase screening utilization. Several ongoing, large multi-center trials are underway that investigate new clinical platforms for CRC screening, the impact of gene-environment interaction on CRC risk stratification and the utility of patient specific information tailoring to increase CRC screening use.