Nodal Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Predicts Receipt of Radiation Therapy after Breast Cancer Diagnosis.

Samantha is the manager of the Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) Biostatistics Shared Resource. Collaboratively, she primarily works with physicians in DCI, specifically in research of Endocrine Neoplasia and Breast Cancer. She is also the director of the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Research, and Design Methods (BERD) Core Training and Internship Program (BCTIP). Her professional experience involves study design, analysis, and reporting of clinical trials and observational studies. Her specific areas of interest include training of collaborative biostatisticians, modeling of non-linear associations, and application of partitioning analyses to identify homogeneous patient groups.

Dr. Jennifer Plichta is an Associate Professor of Surgery & Population Health Sciences at Duke University. She serves as the Director of the Breast Risk Assessment Clinic in the Duke Cancer Institute, where she cares for patients with breast cancer, benign breast problems, and those with an increased risk of breast cancer. Her clinical interests include establishing routine breast cancer risk assessment for women and creating personalized management strategies for those found to be “high risk”.

Dr. Plichta’s research focuses of identifying and managing women with risk factors for breast cancer, including those with genetic mutations, such as BRCA, those with abnormal breast biopsies, and those with a family history of breast cancer. She is also studying metastatic breast cancer and how breast cancer staging can be used to improve patient care and education. 

However, her dedication to breast cancer extends beyond her clinical and research interests. She also enjoys educating the community about breast cancer and helping to raise money for breast cancer research and education. She is the creator and primary coordinator of Duke’s free, annual breast education day for the community, “What’s best for breasts?”.

Dr. Laura Rosenberger is an Associate Professor of Surgery, where she has a high-volume breast surgical oncology practice and enjoys all aspects of an academic career. She has clinical expertise and research interest in rare breast cancers, including sarcomas and a specific focus on phyllodes tumors. Dr. Rosenberger is the founding and coordinating Principal Investigator of multiple, multi-institutional studies, including a funded prospective germline testing study, and an actively accruing rare breast tumor registry with tissue biorepository. She has authored, or co-authored, over 75 peer-reviewed publications, and serves on multiple national committees including a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, or NCCN, Breast Cancer Panel.