David H. Abramson

David H. Abramson is Chief, Ophthalmic Oncology Service Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Professor of Ophthalmology Weill Cornell Medical School, New York, New York. Over my 50-year career as a clinician scientist focusing on ophthalmic oncology, I have contributed fundamental insights to the understanding of intra- and periocular tumors, particularly retinoblastoma, and led highly influential clinical research developing improved treatments. Highlights of my research include collaborating on the determination of the cell of origin of retinoblastoma (Nature 2014), identification of molecular alterations in choroidal and conjunctival tumors, and delineation of the pharmacokinetics of periocular, intraocular, intravenous, and intraarterial delivery of chemotherapy.

The latter work has helped revolutionize the treatment of retinoblastoma, leading to a paradigm in which the vast majority of eyes can be preserved, often retaining visual function. Other therapeutic advances I have led include the replacement of exenteration by combined radiation and chemotherapy for recurrent embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, orbital brachytherapy for recurrent rhabdomyosarcoma, antibiotics for periocular lymphomas, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for retinoblastoma, and intravitreal chemotherapy for ocular malignancies. I also served as a PI on the NIH-sponsored 20-year Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS) of uveal melanoma, which led to a standard approach to 125I brachytherapy and contributed to clinical and epidemiologic knowledge of choroidal melanoma.

For 50 years, I have studied and published on second malignancies in retinoblastoma with the world’s largest cohort of patients and the longest follow-up (some > 50 years). In collaboration with NIH researchers, including Fred Li and Joe Fraumeni, we have elucidated the role of the gene, environment and treatment in the genesis of second cancers. As a result of this work, we changed the management of retinoblastoma-abandoning effective treatment (radiation) because of long term side effects and introducing alternatives which are more effective, cheaper while with minimizing short- and long-term side effects of treatment.