Dr. Lisa K. Sprod to Be Honored with the Pain and Symptom Management Award

The ASCO 2012 Pain and Symptom Management Award will be presented today to Lisa K. Sprod, PhD, of the University of Rochester School of Medicine. Dr. Sprod will accept the award during today’s Clinical Science Symposium to be held from 3:00 PM-4:30 PM in room S100bc.

“This is a highly competitive award and I am excited and honored to be chosen to receive it,” Dr. Sprod told ASCO Daily News. In her presentation, Dr. Sprod will show that older patients with cancer (age ≥ 65) have significant functional limitations compared with age-matched survivors with no history of cancer and are less likely to engage in physical activity, which may contribute to their physical limitation. Consequently, functional limitations and reduced physical activity may leave older patients at a greater risk of cancer recurrence and reduced survival.

Dr. Sprod received her bachelor’s degree from Colorado Mesa University where she earned a National Collegiate Athletic Association Scholar Athlete Award every semester (1995 to 1999). Her interest investigating physical exercise in older patients with cancer began when she was a graduate student in the University of Northern Colorado’s Exercise Science program.

At the University of Northern Colorado, she was the clinical coordinator at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Rehabilitation Institute (RMCRI), which is an outpatient clinic at the University of Northern Colorado dedicated to reducing side effects of cancer and its treatment through exercise intervention programs. It was here that she first examined the role exercise plays in the management of side effects in survivors of cancer.

As a former Division I athlete, Dr. Sprod enrolled in the University of Northern Colorado’s Exercise Science program with the view that she would eventually work with top athletes. She surprised herself when she discovered that working with survivors of cancer and developing exercise intervention programs provided her with tremendous satisfaction and fueled her passion to investigate the benefits of these intervention programs in older survivors of cancer.

At RMCRI, she was instrumental in designing and implementing research studies on the effect of exercise interventions on survivors during and following treatment and on the impact of exercise on survivors with various cancer diagnoses.

Dr. Sprod received her doctoral degree in 2009 and, given the interests she developed as a graduate student, she pursued postgraduate studies in exercise science and cancer. She was awarded a National Cancer Institute Biobehavioral Cancer Control research fellowship to work with Dr. Gary Morrow and Dr. Karen Mustian at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. Dr. Sprod’s current research interests include studying the effects of exercise on cancer-related fatigue during chemotherapy.

Dr. Sprod is presently completing a master’s degree in public health, and this fall she will be joining the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s (UNCW) School of Health and Applied Human Sciences as an assistant professor. At the UNCW, Dr. Sprod will continue pursuing her interests in exercise interventions in older patients with cancer. “Despite the majority of survivors being elderly, little research has been done to study the effects of exercise on functional outcomes in older survivors,” she told ASCO Daily News.

Dr. Sprod has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including a National Institutes of Health Clinical Investigator Award, and has received the Cancer Exercise Trainer certification from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Sprod has contributed significantly to the literature on the role of exercise in older cancer patients and has also presented at national and international meetings.