Spiros P Hiotis, MD, PhD

Dr Hiotis is a Surgical Oncologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He received his MD degree from the University of Maryland, and also holds a PhD in Immunology. Dr Hiotis trained in General Surgery at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and in Surgical Oncology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He has a strong interest in cancers of the liver and gastrointestinal tract. In addition to clinical practice in surgical oncology, Dr Hiotis is currently actively engaged in both clinical and laboratory research.

He is currently the principal investigator of an independently funded scientific research project, which focuses on the interaction between hepatic fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with hepatitis B. This project involves both a retrospective and prospective component. The prospective arm includes a tumor banking protocol, from which over 100 human tumor and non-neoplastic liver parenchymal specimens have already been collected and cryopreserved. This is a highly unique tumor bank, and only includes hepatocellular cancers from patients with hepatitis B. A broad spectrum of tumors have already been collected from patients with varying degrees of underlying hepatic fibrosis, which is a unique characteristic seen in patients with hepatitis B associated hepatocellular carcinoma. Dr Hiotis’ hepatitis B-hepatocellular carcinoma research project is designed to evaluate differences in hepatocellular carcinoma that arise in patients with underlying cirrhosis, vs. those cancers that arise instead in livers with minimal or moderate fibrosis. His additional research activities also include participation in clinical trials for treatment of liver and gastrointestinal cancers, and basic science research focusing on cancer immunotherapy in a mouse model for hepatocellular carcinoma.