ADVISORY BOARD TEAM
Alan B. Hollingsworth, MD Medical Director Mercy Breast Center, Oklahoma City
In the 1980s, Dr. Hollingsworth was one of the earliest surgeons who transitioned to a breast-dedicated practice, who established one of the first multidisciplinary breast centers in the U.S. He was the First Holder of the G. Rainey Williams Chair of Surgical Breast Oncology at the University of Oklahoma.
After breast MRI was introduced into clinical practice, he transitioned to a practice focused on risk assessment, genetic testing, and high risk
surveillance with auxiliary breast imaging. He was the first non-radiologist to present data on MRI screening in a national forum, the 2006 general assembly of the American Society of Breast Disease. Along with his radiologic counterpart, Dr. Rebecca Stough, he has published some of the key papers on breast MRI. He has a special interest in the epidemiology of breast cancer screening, and has written a lay text on the topic, as well as book chapters on risk assessment and genetic testing. He serves on the Editorial Board of The Breast Journal, and is often asked to review and comment on breast MRI articles published in other journals as well.
Although in the private sector now, he is heavily involved in research strategies to better select patients for screening MRI. Over the past 15 years, he has submitted over 10,000 blood samples to various researchers working on a blood test that would signal the need for MRI in the face of negative mammograms. And, since July 2015, he has been a principal investigator on a $2.5 million R-01 NCI grant with computer scientists at the University of Oklahoma who have developed an image analysis system to select patients for MRI in spite of normal mammograms. This work has prompted a 4,000 patient clinical trial currently underway.