Luis F. Tapias Vargas, M.D.

The Mayo Clinic Upper Digestive Disease Survey has been created in order to have a consistent evaluation tools for patients undergoing esophageal reconstruction or treatment  or patients that are experiencing an upper digestive disease in order to standardize and validate outcome measures.  Data will be used to establish the validation of the questionnaires/survey.  Data will also lead to the establishment of “normal” or expected scores for patients undergoing each type of esophagectomy procedure and for upper digestive diseases.  Data will contribute to creating treatment algorithms for symptom management for upper digestive diseases and for post-operative complications and symptoms as well as contribute to pre-operative education.  

The purpose of this study is to determine 3- and 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) among patients undergoing pulmonary segmentectomy for lung cancer. Participants will complete questionnaires before surgery, between 2 to 4 weeks after surgery, and 6 months after surgery.

To investigate if DNA cancer-associated-variants (CAV) in post-operative blood, tumor tissue and surgical drain fluid can correlate molecular residual disease (MRD) with clinical, radiographic, or pathologic recurrence or progression at 12- and 24- months post-surgery in patients with esophageal cancer and thymic epithelial tumors

The purpose of this study is to anayze the usefulness of treatment with nivolumab and ipilimumab in addition to standard of care chemotherapy and radiation therapy in patients with esophageal and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who are undergoing surgery. Immunotherapy with antibodies, such as nivolumab and ipilimumab, may remove the brake on the body's immune system and may interfere with the ability of tumor cells to grow and spread. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy may reduce the tumor size and the amount of normal tissue that needs to be removed during surgery. A combined treatment with nivolumab and ipilimumab, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy might be more effective in patients with esophageal and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who are undergoing surgery.

The purpose of this study is to collect blood and tumor tissue from esophageal cancer patients in order to identify specific esophageal cancer mutations that can be measured in the blood (cell free DNA) during the course of treatment as a marker of response and recurrence.

The purpose of this study is to characterize post-surgical drain fluid, pleural fluid, collected from the drainage device placed during surgery, as a biomarker for molecular residual disease in patients with non small cell lung cancer.