Dr. Deshka Foster is a dual fellowship-trained surgical oncologist and hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) surgeon with Stanford Health Care. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of General Surgery, Section of Surgical Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dr. Foster offers advanced, personalized treatment for patients with HPB cancers, including cancers of the pancreas, bile ducts (cholangiocarcinoma), gallbladder, and liver, as well as gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. She also directs the Hepatic Arterial Infusion (HAI) Pump Therapy Program at Stanford.
As a surgeon-scientist, Dr. Foster holds a Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from Stanford University and leads a basic science and translational research laboratory, where her interests include pancreatic, bile duct, and liver tumor microenvironment and solid tumor response to immunotherapy. She and her laboratory team specifically research cells that influence tumor behavior and resistance to treatment, which cause tumor fibrosis (cancer-associated fibroblasts). The Foster Laboratory also studies abdominal adhesion fibrosis, which are internal scar tissue bands that form after surgical operations and can cause bowel obstruction and complicate further surgical procedures. Dr. Foster's team has developed a novel dual-actual therapeutic, which shows efficacy to prevent adhesion formation in small and large animal models.
Dr. Foster has published her research in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including Cancer Cell, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Communications, Science, Cell, PNAS, Cell Reports Medicine, JAMA, and Annals of Surgical Oncology. She has presented to her colleagues at national and regional meetings, including those of the American Association for Cancer Research, Society of Surgical Oncology, the Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association, the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress, and the Annual Academic Surgical Congress.
Dr. Foster is a member of the American College of Surgeons, and she serves on the Research Committees for both the Society of Surgical Oncology and the Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association/International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association. She is also a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, and the Association of Women Surgeons. In addition, she is an associate member of the American Association for Cancer Research and a candidate member of the Association for Academic Surgery.