Daniel A. Ermann, MD Awarded Merit Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)

Who I am: (Daniel A. Ermann, MD)

My name is Daniel Ermann, second-year hematology/oncology fellow at Huntsman Cancer Institute. I earned my M.D. from Medical School at St. George’s University and went onto Internal Medicine Residency at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Following this I pursued my fellowship training in Hematology/Oncology at Huntsman (HCI) and am planning to specialize in the treatment and management of Lymphoma malignancies, with an interest in Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Additionally, I have been training to be a Clinical Researcher working on ground-breaking Clinical Trials for Lymphoma patients under the expert mentorship of Dr. Deborah Stephens and Dr. Boyu Hu.

What is the award: Conquer Cancer, ASCO Foundation, Merit Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)

This is a limited award, given to few select applicants, that is designated only to Oncology Fellows whose research is high-quality and has excellent scientific merit

These award recipients are honored with the opportunity to present their first-author research at the Annual Scientific Meeting (ASCO), receive $1,000 in monetary support, complimentary registration, and access to additional benefits.

How I did the research: Database Study, National Cancer Database (NCDB)

For this study, we utilized the National Cancer Database. This a large and powerful oncology registry that captures up to 70% of newly diagnosed malignancies in the United States annually. This database provides opportunities for clinical study research and high quality outcomes analysis, and includes patients with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Study Title: Racial Disparities Affecting Black Patients with Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma.

Key Findings:

1. Compared to age-matched White patients, younger Black patients (age < 80) and had worse median survival and worse overall survival at both 5- and 10-years.

2. Black race was independently associated with worse OS (HR 1.06, CI 1.01-1.10, p=0.02) when compared to White race.

3. Propensity matched analysis for surrogate markers of health care access showed non-significant difference in survival, suggesting further studies evaluating these racial disparities is warranted.