Jose Pablo Leone, MD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Boston, Massachusetts
Boston, Massachusetts
Titles and Affiliations
Director, Program for Breast Cancer in Men
Physician
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School
Research area
Testing new therapeutic strategies for male breast cancer.
Impact
Male breast cancer accounts for less than 1 percent of all cancers in men, but the incidence of male breast cancer has increased almost two-fold since the 1970’s. The risk of breast cancer is doubled in men who have a first-degree relative with breast cancer. Black men are at greater risk of developing breast cancer than non-Hispanic white men, and when compared to female patients, male breast cancer patients tend to be diagnosed at later stages and have lower overall survival. The treatment of male breast cancer, which is almost always estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, is typically tamoxifen, but the best strategy remains challenging as there is little to no data on the optimal endocrine therapy to use in men. Dr. Leone and his team are embarking on a study to test multiple therapeutic strategies that are currently employed in female patients, including hormone targeting drugs and CDK4/6 inhibitors.
What’s next
The study is anticipated to open in 2022 at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and will be expanded to multiple sites throughout the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium—a BCRF collective of leading breast cancer sites across the United States.
Biography
José Pablo Leone, MD is a medical oncologist and clinical investigator in the Breast Oncology Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He serves as Director, Program for Breast Cancer in Men at Dana-Farber and Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School. He received his MD from Universidad del Salvador, Argentina in 2005. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital in 2011 and went on to complete fellowships in Hematology and Medical Oncology at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 2014. He was faculty at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics from 2014 through 2017. His research focuses on brain metastases, male breast cancer and novel therapies in the treatment of breast cancer.
