Elizabeth Plimack, MD, MS

Department of Hematology/Oncology

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Clinical Locations

Primary Location
Fox Chase Cancer Center

Deputy Director, Fox Chase Cancer Center

Professor, Department of Hematology/Oncology

Specialties

Research Program

Nuclear Dynamics and Cancer

Key Awards

Medical Oncology

Treatment Philosophy

With a diagnosis of cancer comes uncertainty and fear for many patients. As a medical oncologist, my first job is to help each patient understand his or her diagnosis. With that understanding, together we can design the best plan of action. At Fox Chase, each patient has the benefit of an interdisciplinary team working together to ensure the highest quality care. This interdisciplinary approach is crucial in determining and implementing the best treatment plan.

I specialize in the treatment of kidney, bladder, prostate and testicular cancer, and my clinical practice is focused on these diseases. By concentrating exclusively on genitourinary malignancies I am able to offer expert knowledge as well as access to both standard treatments and emerging therapies in the form of clinical trials. The pace of scientific discovery has accelerated in recent decades, and fortunately we have seen these discoveries translate into meaningful improvements in cancer treatments.

As part of the genitourinary group here at Fox Chase, I am proud to be a part of a team of distinguished researchers who have pioneered many of these new treatments. My particular research efforts focus on the development of new therapies for bladder and kidney cancer.

Educational Background

Chief Fellow, Medical Oncology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Intern and Resident, Internal Medicine, New York University Medical Center / Bellevue Hospital, NY
MS, Patient-Based Biologic Research, University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, 2008
MD with Honors in Pathology, New York University School of Medicine, 2002

Memberships

National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)
- Bladder/Penile Cancers Panel
- Kidney/Testicular Cancers Panel
- Prostate Cancer Panel
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
- 2015-2018 — ASCO Scientific Committee, Genitourinary (non-prostate)
- 2016-2017 — Track Chair, ASCO Scientific Committee, Genitourinary (non-prostate)
- 2020-2024 — Elected Member, ASCO Board of Directors
Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN)
- 2013-2019 — BCAN Think Tank Steering Committee
- 2016-2017 — Co-Chair, 2017 BCAN Think Tank
- 2017-2018 — Chair, 2018 BCAN Think Tank
- 2014 — Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network Young Investigator Award Study Section
- 2015-2018 — Chair, Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network Young Investigator Award Study Section
- 2018-Present — Bladder Cancer Research Network (BCRN) Management Committee
- 2020-2023 — Chair, BCAN Scientific Advisory Board
Department of Defense (DOD) Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Study Section
- 2015, 2016, 2017 — Reviewer, Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP), Kidney Cancer
- 2020 — Chair, Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP), Kidney Cancer
- 2021 — Programmatic Panel Member. Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs: Kidney Cancer

Honors & Awards

Philadelphia Magazine Top Doctors, 2017-2022
Best Doctors in America^® , 2019-2020, Medical Oncology and Hematology
America's Top Doctors^®, 2017
Leadership Forum Excellence Award, Fox Chase Cancer Center, 2012
Humanitas Award, Division of Cancer Medicine Hematology/Oncology Fellowship, MD Anderson Cancer Center, 2008
Award for Achievement in Clinical Investigation, Division of Cancer Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center, 2008
Research Forum, MD Anderson Cancer Center, 2008
Honorable Mention, First Annual Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program, 2008
ASCO Foundation Merit Award, ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, 2008

Paula Wolf

Bladder Cancer

In 2017, I was having one of the best years of my life. I was about to turn 60, I’d lost weight, and I was feeling good and having a great time. Then, insurance stopped covering the medication I took for acid reflux and my stomach started hurting. I visited my family doctor to ask for something to control the reflux. I also asked for an ultrasound of my stomach and gallbladder, because two other members of my family had had emergency gallbladder surgery, so it was on my mind.

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Donna McAllister

Bladder Cancer

I was treated with compassion, given hope, and kept informed of every facet of my treatment.

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Al De Carlo

Kidney Cancer

Now that I’m 74 and retired, I spend most of my time outside or in the garage. Since my service in the Navy, where I worked as a ship fitter, taking care of the plumbing and mechanical issues, I’ve always been fascinated with machines and how they work. So for me, as crazy as it seems to my wife, working outside, tinkering with machines, and splitting wood, isn’t hard work – it’s my playtime.

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Mu Sang

Kidney Cancer

My doctor in China told me there was nothing to be done, and said I had only six months to live. I could not accept this. I wasn’t ready to give up.

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Research Interests

Biomarkers predictive of response to neoadjuvant cisplatin based chemotherapy in bladder cancer
Refining neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens for bladder cancer
Developmental Therapeutics – early stage clinical trials of novel agents
Immunotherapy in GU Malignancies

Selected Publications

Bilusic M., Girardi D., Zhou Y., Jung K., Pei J., Slifker M., Chen Q., Meerzaman D., Alpaugh K., Young D., Flieder D., Gray P., Plimack E., Molecular profiling of exceptional responders to cancer therapy. Oncologist. 26(3): 186-195, 2021. PMC7930427. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33210795.

Powles T., Plimack E.R., Soulières D., Waddell T., Stus V., Gafanov R., Nosov D., Pouliot F., Melichar B., Vynnychenko I., Azevedo S.J., Borchiellini D., McDermott R.S., Bedke J., Tamada S., Yin L., Chen M., Molife L.R., Atkins M.B.,Rini B.I., Pembrolizumab plus axitinib versus sunitinib monotherapy as first-line treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (keynote-426): Extended follow-up from a randomised, open-label, phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol. 21(12): 1563-1573, 2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33284113.

Vuky J., Balar A.V., Castellano D., O'Donnell P.H., Grivas P., Bellmunt J., Powles T., Bajorin D., Hahn N.M., Savage M.J., Fang X., Godwin J.L., Frenkl T.L., Homet Moreno B., de Wit R., Plimack E.R., Long-term outcomes in keynote-052: Phase ii study investigating first-line pembrolizumab in cisplatin-ineligible patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer. J Clin Oncol. 38(23): 2658-2666, 2020. PMC5568632. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32552471

Bamias A, Tzannis K, Bamia C, Harshman LC, Crabb S, Plimack ER, Pal S, De Giorgi U, Ladoire S, Theodore C, Agarwal N, Yu EY, Niegisch G, Sternberg CN, Srinivas S, Vaishampayan U, Necchi A, Liontos M, Rosenberg JE, Powles T, Bellmunt J, Galsky MD. The Impact of Cisplatin- or Non-Cisplatin-Containing Chemotherapy on Long-Term and Conditional Survival of Patients with Advanced Urinary Tract Cancer. The oncologist, 2019.

Changa NM, Xie WL, Bilen MA, Dzimitrowicz H, Burkart J, Geynisman DM, Balakrishnan A, Bowman IA, Jain R, Stadler W, Zakharia Y, Narayan V, Beuselinck B, McKay RR, Tripathi A, Pachynski R, Hahn AW, Hsu J, Shah SA, Lam ET, Rose TL, Mega AE, Vogelzang N, Harrison MR, Mortazavi A, Plimack ER, Vaishampayan U, Hammers H, George S, Haas N, Agarwal N, Pal SK, Srinivas S, Carneiro BA, Heng DYC, Bosse D, Choueiri TK, Harshman LC. Cabozantinib in advanced non-clear-cell renal cell carcinoma: a multicentre, retrospective, cohort study. Lancet Oncology, 20(4):581-90, 2019.

Rouvinov K, Plimack ER, Zibelman M, Ghatalia P, Geynisman DM. Update on perioperative systemic therapy for urothelial carcinoma. Clinical advances in hematology & oncology : H&O, 17(3):176-83, 2019.

Voss MH, Bhatt RS, Vogelzang NJ, Fishman M, Alter RS, Rini BI, Beck JT, Joshi M, Hauke R, Atkins MB, Burgess E, Logan TF, Shaffer D, Parikh R, Moazzam N, Zhang X, Glasser C, Sherman ML, Plimack ER. A phase 2, randomized trial evaluating the combination of dalantercept plus axitinib in patients with advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Cancer, 2019.

Amin A, Plimack ER, Ernstoff MS, Lewis LD, Bauer TM, McDermott DF, Carducci M, Kollmannsberger C, Rini BI, Heng DYC, Knox J, Voss MH, Spratlin J, Berghorn E, Yang L, Hammers HJ. Correction to: Safety and efficacy of nivolumab in combination with sunitinib or pazopanib in advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma: the CheckMate 016 study. Journal for immunotherapy of cancer, 7(1):73, 2019. PMC6416882

He AR, Cohen RB, Denlinger CS, Sama A, Birnbaum A, Hwang J, Sato T, Lewis N, Mynderse M, Niland M, Giles J, Wallin J, Moser B, Zhang W, Walgren R, Plimack ER. First-in-Human Phase I Study of Merestinib, an Oral Multikinase Inhibitor, in Patients with Advanced Cancer. The oncologist, 2019.

Martinez Chanza N, Xie W, Asim Bilen M, Dzimitrowicz H, Burkart J, Geynisman DM, Balakrishnan A, Bowman IA, Jain R, Stadler W, Zakharia Y, Narayan V, Beuselinck B, McKay RR, Tripathi A, Pachynski R, Hahn AW, Hsu J, Shah SA, Lam ET, Rose TL, Mega AE, Vogelzang N, Harrison MR, Mortazavi A, Plimack ER, Vaishampayan U, Hammers H, George S, Haas N, Agarwal N, Pal SK, Srinivas S, Carneiro BA, Heng DYC, Bosse D, Choueiri TK, Harshman LC. Cabozantinib in advanced non-clear-cell renal cell carcinoma: a multicentre, retrospective, cohort study. The Lancet Oncology, 2019... Expand

Additional Publications

MyNCBI

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