Program Director, Terrance D. Peabody, MD

The University of Chicago Orthopaedic Oncology Fellowship is an ACGME accredited program. This is a one-year fellowship which offers clinical and surgical training with a respected team of musculoskeletal oncology orthopaedic surgeons: Michael Simon, MD, Terrance Peabody, MD, and Rex Haydon, MD, PhD.

Our program specializes in tumors of the musculoskeletal system, including benign and malignant bone tumors and soft tissue tumors. Training includes both outpatient and surgical experience, which includes limb salvage surgery as well as complex reconstruction with allograft reconstruction.

We hold weekly multidisciplinary conferences which review patient care and treatment plans with the oncology team. The orthopaedic oncology team--which includes respected experts in orthopaedic surgery, oncology and other specialties--works together to design the best treatment for each patient, which may include:

• Limb-sparing surgeries
• Chemotherapy
• Radiation
• Radiofrequency ablation--surgeons use heat to destroy cancerous tissue
• Immunotherapy (for melanoma)--our team uses drugs and laboratory techniques to activate the body's own immune system to attack cancer cells
• Cytokine therapy--we use drugs called cytokines to fight kidney cancer that has spread to the bone
• Participation in clinical trials

The best bone cancer treatments combine several types of therapies. For example, our surgeons, oncologists and radiation therapists work together to improve the success rates of bone cancer surgery by using chemotherapy treatments prior to surgery.

In addition, our orthopaedic oncologists care for patients with bone tumors and fractures that are caused by lung, breast, prostate, thyroid and kidney cancer. Our physicians provide the most advanced forms of chemotherapy and radiation available. In fact, they are involved in developing, refining and testing the latest drug and radiation treatments. For example, we participated in a unique multicenter study that examined the effect of gene therapy and radiation on soft-tissue sarcomas (tumors).

The orthopaedic oncology fellow participates in clinic and surgery with Drs. Simon, Peabody and Haydon. The fellow is also required to complete a research project during their year of training at the University of Chicago.