Message from the Chief of Surgical Oncology

2025 was a year of changes and growth for the Peyton Anderson Cancer Center and the Division of Surgical Oncology. The cancer center continues to grow with record numbers of patients from middle Georgia coming to us for world class cancer care in their own backyard! We have seen growth in most areas of cancer, especially in breast, colo-rectal and hepatobiliary cancers. This can be attributed to the introduction of our new specialty surgeons. Dr Salah Jalil joined us in late 2024 and, as the regions only fellowship trained hepatobiliary surgeon, has been able to help many patients in our region with hepatobiliary cancers which include pancreas, liver and other foregut cancers. He also introduced a new type of therapy for liver tumors which gives chemotherapy directly into the liver through an implantable pump. These new services allow patients to have complex surgical cases closer to home. Similarly, our colo-rectal service has seen an increase in colon and rectal cancers with the addition of fellowship trained colo-rectal surgeon, Lindsay Bridges. We are proud to have Dr. Bridges join us after her fellowship in Orlando, Florida. She did her general surgery training here with us and her expertise in the robotic treatment of complex colo-rectal disease again reduces the need for patients to travel to Atlanta or beyond. Most recently Dr. Loreski Collado joined us after her fellowship training in Endocrine Surgery at Emory University. Dr. Collado is Macon’s first fellowship trained Endocrine surgeon specializing in surgical treatment of the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands amongst others. Lastly, our cancer center welcomed Dr. Chahnee Han a fellowship trained gynecologic oncologist specializing in the treatment of ovarian, uterine and other female related gynecologic cancers. While Dr. Han is not in the Department of Surgery, she is a vital addition to the cancer center bringing additional expertise to our Middle Georgia area.

The Peyton Anderson Cancer Center has also seen tremendous growth starting with a new Service Line Director, Dr. Rogerio Lilenbaum. Dr. Lilenbaum, a Medical Oncologist with a clinical focus in lung cancer, recently joined us from Jupiter Florida. He has an extensive background in treating lung cancer. In addition to his clinical expertise, Dr. Lilenbaum has an extensive history of clinical research and has held leadership positions at nationally recognized cancer centers. He, along with all the other exceptional clinicians at PACC, will be leading our cancer center into the future while strengthening our research program and our bond with Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, NC. We continue to strengthen our affiliation with Atrium/Advocate/Arora healthcare system, which is one of the largest health care systems in the US. More specifically, system wide, we take care of more than 33,000 cancer patients in the Southeast and Chicago areas. Dr. Lilenbaum will be expanding our Medical Oncology service line with additional focus on cancer research allowing us to offer our patients state of the art opportunities for new and exciting treatments here in central Georgia.

As you can see, these are exciting times of growth for the Division of Surgical Oncology and the Peyton Anderson Cancer Center. I congratulate our medical staff and the full spectrum of support personnel at the cancer center for making all these significant advances possible. With the strong support of our administrators both locally, regionally and nationally we will continue to provide middle Georgians world class care in their own backyard!