Clinical Interests
Gastrointestinal malignancy

Research Interests
The overarching goal of my research is to improve our ability to tailor cancer treatment regimens to the health, fitness and values of the individual older cancer patient, specifically older colorectal cancer patients.
With a median age at diagnosis of 72, colorectal cancer is largely a disease of the elderly. Unfortunately, in the absence of severe illness or comorbid conditions we have little data available to help guide our treatment decisions in these older patients. Perhaps as a result, the use of chemotherapy in colorectal cancer rapidly declines with age. My current research approaches this problem from two angles. Firstly, I am working with collaborators in Lineberger to identify biomarkers of chemotherapy risk in older colorectal cancer patients. If successful, these risk-predictive biomarkers would allow us to begin to approach to the treatment of older colorectal cancer patients in a graded fashion based on each individuals risk, such that patients with minimal risk of severe toxicity receive aggressive treatment, while those with high risk of severe toxicity are spared treatment-related harm. Secondly, in a parallel project funded by a Lineberger Population Sciences Developmental Award, I am studying the adequacy of the decision making process in elderly colon cancer patients faced with the choice of receiving chemotherapy for stage II of III cancer. This study was designed in an effort to assess whether an inadequate decision-making process may, at least in part, be responsible for the decline in chemotherapy use with age. To do so, with my collaborators from the Decision Support Laboratory of the Cecil Sheps Center for Health Services Research, I have constructed a survey to assess the content of information exchanged and the adequacy of informed decision making during initial adjuvant therapy consultations of older colon cancer patients. The pilot study of this survey will commence soon.

Recent Accomplishments and Honors
2003 Chairmans Award, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Medicine resident award
(Marschall Runge, Chair).
2004 Selected as a K30 fellow.
2005 Amgen Hematology-Oncology fellowship training grant.
2005 Selected for the AACR Molecular Biology in Clinical Oncology workshop.
2006 Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Population Sciences Developmental Award.
2006 NIH Loan Repayment Program Participant.

Training
1996, B.A., Williams College
2000, M.D., University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
2000-2003, Residency in Internal Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2003-2006, Fellowship in Medical Oncology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Publications
Kelly H, Graham M, Humes E, Dorflinger LJ, Boggess KA, ONeil BH, Harris J,
Spector NL, Dees EC. Delivery of a healthy baby after first trimester maternal exposure to the EGFR and HER2 inhibitor lapatinib. Clinical Breast Cancer 2006; 7(4): 339-41

Kelly H, Kimmick G, Dees EC, Collichio F, Gatti L, Sawyer L, Ivanova A, Dressler L, Graham ML, Carey LA. Response and cardiac toxicity of trastuzumab given in conjunction with weekly paclitaxel after doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide. Clin Breast Cancer 2006; 7: 237-243.

Kelly H, Harvey D, and Moll S. A cautionary tale: Fatal outcome of methotrexate
therapy given for management of ectopic pregnancy. Ostet Gynecol 2006; 107:439-441.

Kelly H and ONeil BH. Response of epithelioid hemangioendothelioma to treatment with liposomal doxorubicin. Lancet Oncol, 2005; 6: 813-815.

Kelly H and Goldberg RM. Systemic therapy for metastatic colorectal cancer: Current options, current evidence. J Clin Oncol 2005; 23: 4553-4560.

E-mail: hkelly@med.unc.edu
Telephone: 843-6286
FAX: 966-6735
Address: 3009 Old Clinic Chapel Hill, NC 27599

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