Susanne Osanto is professor of Oncology at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), and medical oncologist at the Department of Medical Oncology of the LUMC.
She received a fellowship of the Queen Wilhelmina Cancer Foundation (KWF)/Nederlandse Kankerbestrijding (NKB).
She is the Founder of a non-profit organization which aims to promote, support, coordinate and improve clinical and laboratory research as well as educational activities in the field of cancer.
Osanto wonders why one person with cancer develops clotting and the other not. Cancer patients who do get thrombosis have a much worse prognosis than the other who don’t,
In blood of cancer patients who developed thrombosis, we found nanosized particles, presumably derived from the cancer cell itself, which expresses bound functionally active tissue factor (the initiator of the coagulation cascade). Such microparticle-associated active tissue factor would be able to inititiate clotting in the body at far distance from the tumour.
Longitudinally collected blood samples (liquid biopsy) from well-characterized prostate cancer patients are being investigated for the presence of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and possible expression of therapy-resistance (splice variants) of genes, DNA traces of the tumour itself (ctDNA) ad RNA.
Canter treatment may cause endothelium damage, with (fatal) arterial or venous thrombosis as result. In blood of such cancer patients we do not find MP-associated functional TF, but instead free radicals, free iron, iron overload, which may ultimately cause fatigue, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and organ damage.
Awareness of physician and patient, lifestyle coaching, en further research, may eventually lead to better preventive strategies.
Academic career
Susanne Osanto received her M.D. degree (cum laude) at the Medical School of Leiden University. She specialized in molecular biology at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Cancer Center.
She was one of the first to implement genetically modified viruses in the clinical in the context of clinical trials in cancer patients and developed and implemented personalized medicine through individualized T cell therapy (T cell product prepared in the GMP facility of the LUMC).
The title of her doctoral thesis (1993) reads ‘Immunotherapy of Cancer’.
In 1993-1994 she was Visiting Professor at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina.
On 1 December 2009 she was appointed Professor in Oncology, in particular the epidemiological and vascular aspects of cancer and anti-cancer therapy, of the Leiden University Medical Center. The title of her inaugural lecture was ‘Panta rhei’ ("all flows").
She is board-certified medical oncologist dedicated to improving quality and delivery of cancer care for cancer patients. She is a member of various professional organizations, served on various Committees a.o. organising committee of an European multidisciplinary cancer conference, and Advisory Boards, served as member of the, and was board member, a.o. chairman of an International Scientific Cancer Group. She was the chairman of the National Committee on Guidelines on Kidney cancer. She is the founder of a non-profit organization to promote clinical and scientific research in the field of uro-oncology.
She organized the 1st International State-of-the-Art in Bladder Cancer Conference (2010) and the 1st International State-of-the-Art in Prostate and Kidney Cancers Conference, in Amsterdam (2013).
