Kaler mines breast cancer data PhD student receives 2025 Quinn Award
Treatment options for metastatic breast cancer have expanded over the past several years, and Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston PhD student Abbey Kaler, MS, FNP-C, will use a new grant to analyze recent survivor data.
The 2025 Elizabeth W. Quinn Oncology Research Award and will help fund Kaler’s dissertation study, “Metastatic Breast Cancer, Comorbidities, and Overall Survival: A Retrospective Cohort Study.”
“The most recent retrospective data analysis of this patient population was completed in 2017, when personalized therapies using novel treatments were very new,” Kaler explained. “A more up-to-date study is needed to examine the complexity of caring for patients with comorbidities.”
She will analyze data from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s tumor registrar, Breast Cancer Management System database, and electronic health record to study the association between comorbidities, symptoms, health care utilization, and overall survival time. The cancer center serves the world’s largest population of patients with metastatic breast cancer, treating more than 2,000 annually. Kaler will focus her review on patients diagnosed from 2022 through 2024.
Kaler is the supervisor and nurse practitioner for the Advanced Breast Cancer Program at MD Anderson and was named the 2023 Extraordinary Healer by CURE® magazine. She is a recipient of the Jane and Robert Cizik PhD Scholarship.
Serving as co-investigators on the study are Janet Van Cleave, PhD, RN, FAAN; Constance Johnson, PhD, MS, RN, FAAN; and Meagan Whisenant, PhD, APRN, at Cizik School of Nursing along with Debashish Tripathy, MD; Ruan Sun, PhD; and Akshara Singareeka Raghavendra, MD, at MD Anderson.
