Alex Taylor, MD wins Rodger Haggitt GI Pathology Award

By Lynn McCain | March 16 2020

Congratulations to Alex Taylor, MD, 3rd year resident, for winning the first place Rodger Haggitt GI Pathology Award for his platform presentation at USCAP! Taylor’s project, “Measuring submucosal depth of invasion in endoscopic mucosal resections for Barrett’s adenocarcinoma would only rarely impact the decision for esophagectomy,” was conducted under the guidance of Dr. Maria Westerhoff, Associate Professor of Pathology. Other U-M participating authors include Jerome Cheng, MD, (Assistant Professor, Path Informatics), and Laura Lamps, MD (Professor and Director of GI Pathology). This work was performed in collaboration with Lindsay Alpert, MD, Namrata Setia, MD< and John Hart, MD, from the University of Chicago.

Taylor et al. retrospectively identified cases in which measuring submucosal depth of invasion could impact treatment selection according to new guidelines. Given previously demonstrated issues with inter-observer reproducibility in measuring depth of invasion, study results suggest that measurement (perhaps by more than one pathologist for consensus) may only need to be performed in rare cases of low histologic risk submucosal cancer, in which a measurement of ≤500 µm could give a patient the option of avoiding surgery.

The Rodger Haggitt GI Pathology (GIPS) Abstract Award is a highly competitive and prestigious award given annually to pathology trainees who present their abstracts at the USCAP meeting.  GIPS was founded by our own Henry Appelman, MD, who served as one of the first presidents.  Other notable U-M figures who have served as this society’s president include Joel Greenson, MD, and Laura Lamps, MD. Alex Taylor continues to make U-M proud!