Many breast cancer patients at the UW Carbone Cancer Center know that one of the best medical oncologists around is Ruth O’Regan, MD, professor and head, Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care. This past January, patients in China learned the same thing.

Dr. O’Regan, the associate director of clinical research at UW Carbone, was one of five US physicians who traveled to China to meet with breast cancer patients, providing second opinions and learning about how cancer is treated similarly and differently there.

In the visit on January 17-22, 2018 arranged by Shenzhen People's Hospital, an academic medical center in Guangdong Province, Dr. Ruth O'Regan was joined by fellow breast cancer oncologists Seema Khan, MD of Northwestern University and Virginia Kaklamani, MD of the University of Texas-San Antonio. The trio discussed multidisciplinary approaches to breast cancer with clinicians at Shenzen People's Hospital, which is affiliated with Jinan University Medical College.

Initially, O’Regan was invited to China to present at three reviews of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). SABCS is the largest annual conference of breast medical oncologists and researchers.

“There was one review in Beijing, one in Shanghai and one in Shenzhen and they had 200-250 Chinese cancer physicians at each,” said Dr. O’Regan. “There were three to four people from the US speaking and the rest Chinese, and we gave talks and had panel discussions about patients.”

In addition to presenting at the reviews, Dr. O’Regan was asked by Dr. Khan and Shenzhen People’s Hospital breast surgeon Hong Hu, MD to participate in an outreach program in Shenzhen. This program started three years ago when Khan began an affiliation to train a few of Shenzhen People’s Hospital breast surgeons, including Hu, at Northwestern. The program, funded by the Chinese government, also pays for a few US physicians to visit Shenzhen annually and to meet with breast cancer patients.

“We visited with patients in the clinic who all came with their medical records, and we gave them our recommendations that they could then take back to their doctors. It was really a second opinion,” said Dr. O’Regan. “We also went into the hospital to see the admitted patients, and this was the best thing we did the whole trip. It was an interesting look at medicine and how they do it.”

This visit marked O’Regan’s first time participating in the outreach at Shenzhen Public Hospital. Dr. O'Regan hopes to build the relationship. When the physicians from China that she met travel to to Northwestern’s breast conference this fall, she hopes they will visit Madison and UW Carbone as well. She also wants to use UW Carbone’s expertise in having a nationally accredited Breast Center to help the Shenzhen physicians move their program forward.

Article contributed by Sarah Purdue, university relations specialist, UW Carbone Cancer Center.