Lung Cancer Screening
Lung screening has the potential to detect lung cancer at earlier stages when it has the best chance of being cured. Learn more in this video from Jo-Anne Shepard, MD, Thoracic Radiologist at the Mass General Cancer Center.
About Jo-Anne Shepard, MD
As Director of Thoracic Imaging and Intervention at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Jo-Anne Shepard assumes responsibility for all clinical, teaching and research activities within the Division.
Dr. Shepard provides subspecialty diagnostic consultation on a wide spectrum of surgical and medical patients including critical care patients in the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU), Cardiac Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU), Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU), Neurologic Intensive Care Unit, and Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU). In addition, she provides imaging and consultation for critically ill patients on the transplant, oncology, burn, trauma, infectious disease, and pulmonary services in addition to the general medical and surgical services. Dr. Shepard routinely performs diagnostic percutaneous biopsy of the lung and she has instituted radiofrequency ablation (RFA) as an alternative treatment for tumors of the lung and chest wall with the support of the Departments of Thoracic Surgery and Thoracic Oncology. As Medical Director, Department of Radiology, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Dr. Shepard has administrative responsibility for the technical performance and diagnostic interpretation of the radiographic images performed in the department.
Dr. Shepard teaches the art and science of radiology to Harvard medical students, medical, surgical and radiology interns, residents and fellows and international visiting physicians. She is Director of the Cardiothoracic Imaging Fellowship Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and an examiner in Cardiothoracic Radiology for the American Board of Radiology (ABR). Since 2000 she has been Associate Editor in Radiology for the Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital, New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Shepard's research interests are in the realm of thoracic imaging and intervention.
Departments, Centers, & Programs:
Clinical Interests:
- Critical care imaging
- Diseases of airways
- Lung cancer
- Lung transplant
- Percutaneous Needle Aspiration Biopsy
- Pulmonary Embolism
- Radiofrequency Ablation of Lung
- Thoracic PET / CT
- Thoracic radiology
Treats:
- Adult
Locations
Mass General Imaging: Thoracic Imaging and Intervention
55 Fruit St.
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: 617-643-4723
Medical Education
- MD, Boston University
- Residency, Hartford Healthcare****
- Residency, Massachusetts General Hospital
- Fellowship, VA Boston Healthcare System
American Board Certifications
- Diagnostic Radiology, American Board of Radiology
Accepted Insurance Plans
- Aetna
- Beech Street
- Blue Cross Blue Shield
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Medicare
- Cigna
- Commonwealth Care Alliance
- Coventry
- Fallon Health
- Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
- Humana
- Maine Community Health Options
- Mass General Brigham Health Plan
- MassHealth
- Medicaid ME
- Medicaid NH
- Medicaid NY
- Medicaid RI
- Medicaid VT
- Medicare
- Medicare ACO
- Multiplan
- Railroad Medicare
- Senior Whole Health
- TriCare
- Tufts Health Plan
- United Health Care
- Wellpoint
- WellSense
- WellSense NH
Note: This provider may accept more insurance plans than shown; please call the practice to find out if your plan is accepted.
Research
Dr. Shepard's research interests are in the realm of thoracic imaging and intervention. Her research has focused on studying percutaneous needle biopsy of the lung, resulting in implementation of standard procedures for the appropriate selection of patients, improved diagnostic technique, and significantly improved post procedural care of biopsy patients. The experience and skills derived from the experience with needle biopsies have led to the development of the Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) Program for lung tumors at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her current research focuses on studying RFA of the lung in the treatment of lung tumors. She is a co-investigator in the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) pilot study of RFA in high risk patients with Stage IA non-small cell lung cancer.
The MGH recently participated in the Pulmonary Embolism Diagnosis (PIOPED II), a National Institute of Health (NIH) sponsored multi-center trial in the investigation of pulmonary embolism by CT angiography (CTA) and peripheral venous thrombosis by CT venography (CTV). Dr. Shepard oversaw the implementation of this trial within the Division of Thoracic Radiology at MGH. The results of the PIOPED II investigation have recently been published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Shepard's clinical investigations have focused on imaging of thoracic surgical conditions including lung transplantation, diseases of the airways, and lung tumors. She has described imaging findings on new technologies including MR imaging and FDG PET imaging characteristics of chest tumors. She has investigated the CT evaluation of incidental pulmonary nodules detected by CT leading to the development of guidelines for the follow up of pulmonary nodules published by the Fleischner Society. Dr. Shepard is currently investigating dose reduction techniques in CT imaging of the chest.
Publications
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Original Articles
Stein PD, Fowler SE, Goodman LR, Gottschalk A, Hales C, Hull RD, Leeper KV, Popovich J, Quinn DA, Sos TA, Sostman HD, Tapson VF, Wakefield TW, Weg JG, Woodard PK, for the PIOPED II INVESTIGATORS* (*CT Working Group- Goodman L, Burrowes P, Hatfield B, Heiken J, Henschke C, Heyneman L, Kazerooni E, MacGregor J, McAdams H, Mcloud T, Patel S, Shepard JO*, Spizarny D, Wittram C, Woodard P, Woodcock R, Yankelevitz D). Multidetector computed tomography for acute pulmonary embolism. N Engl J Med 2006; 354:2317-27.
Lanuti M, Sharma A, Digumarthy SR, Wright CD, Donahue DM, Wain JC, Mathisen DJ, Shepard JO*. Radiofrequency ablation for treatment of medically inoperable stage I non-small cell lung cancer. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2009;137(1):160-6.
Singh S, Kalra MK, Gilman M, Hsieh J, Pien HP, Digumarthy SR, Shepard JO*. Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction technique for radiation dose reduction in chest CT: A pilot study. Radiology March 2011.
Review Articles
Wu CC, Maher MM, Shepard JO. CME. WEB. Structured Review Article. CT-Guided Percutaneous Needle Biopsy of the Chest: Preprocedural Evaluation and Technique. Am. J. Roentgenol. ; May 2011. 196(5): 10.2214.
Wu CC, Maher MM, Shepard JO. CME. WEB. Structured Review Article. Complications of CT-Guided Percutaneous Needle Biopsy of the Chest: Prevention and Management Am. J. Roentgenol. June 2011.
Sharma A, Moore WH, Shepard, JO. How I Do It: Radiofrequency Ablation and Cryoablation of Lung Tumors. J Thorac Imaging 2011;26:162-74.