Awardees & Updates – 2017

Drs. Rachel Masch, MD, MPH & Miriam Cremer, MD, MPH of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Cleveland Clinic Lerner School of Medicine respectively, will study the risk of cervical vaginal infections from ablation treatment for cervical pre-cancers. Cervical ablation is standard treatment for cervical pre-cancer in most low and middle-income countries and in the United States for persistent CIN1 because it is simple and feasible. Ablative therapies would be used more widely if there were more evidence on their safety and efficacy. Basic Health International (BHI), a nonprofit charity dedicated to the eradication of cervical cancer, under Drs. Masch and Cremer’s leadership and through the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, is undertaking a landmark efficacy trial funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on ablation therapy to prevent cervical cancer; this FWW award enables a trial within the larger study to answer specific long-standing questions about its promise for changing treatment protocol in better preventing cervical cancer worldwide.

Dr. Rachel Masch, MD, MPH is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, a faculty physician at Mt Sinai Beth Israel and Chief Medical Officer of Basic Health International (BHI). Dr. Miriam Cremer, MD, MPH is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and staff physician at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and the President and founder of BHI. BHI is a nonprofit public charity dedicated to eradication of cervical cancer with affiliations at Cleveland Clinic School of Medicine and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.