Massachusetts General Hospital | Imaging

BiographyDr. Pandharipande is an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, an Assistant Radiologist in Abdominal Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Senior Scientist at the MGH Institute for Technology Assessment. She is a graduate of Cornell University (BA), Cornell University Medical College (MD), and the Harvard School of Public Health (MPH). She completed her residency in diagnostic radiology at NYU, and an NCI-sponsored fellowship in cancer outcomes research and abdominal imaging at MGH. Dr. Pandharipande's career goal is to improve cancer outcomes by defining the best roles for imaging-based technologies in the care of cancer patients. She is currently the Principal Investigator of an NIH/NCI K07 Award in which she is evaluating the cost-effectiveness of imaging-guided RF ablation for kidney tumors. Dr. Pandharipande is also clinically active within the Abdominal Imaging Division at MGH, where she interprets imaging studies and trains residents and fellows.

ResearchDr. Pandharipande's research integrates cancer outcomes, clinical radiology, and decision science. In the upcoming years, her primary goal is to improve guidelines for managing small, incidentally detected renal tumors. Dr. Pandharipande's research is focused on evaluating a practice that is currently considered controversial in renal oncology - the routine treatment of tumors with minimally invasive, ablative therapies instead of surgery. She is developing a computer model that simulates the natural history, treatment, and possible recurrence of renal tumors, and will use this model to predict health and economic outcomes consequent to both ablative and surgical interventions. Her preliminary decision model has been published (Pandharipande et al, Radiology, 2008), as has interval work (Pandharipande et al, Radiology, 2010), and serves as the basis for her NCI K07 grant: Cost-Effectiveness of Radiofrequency Ablation for Incidental Renal Tumors. She has additionally pursued several other projects that integrate radiology and cancer outcomes research, both as a primary investigator and as a collaborator.

PublicationsSee my publications by searching Pandharipande PV in Pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez.

Primary health risks outweigh long-term radiation concerns

Immediate health risks supersede lifetime radiation-induced cancer risk in patients undergoing CT surveillance for testicular cancer, according to a new study.

Immediate Health Risk Must Be Weighed Against Radiation-Induced Cancer Risk

The lifetime risks of cancer from medical radiation may be overemphasized relative to more immediate health risks, according to a new study.