Richard Essner, M.D. FACS

Dr. Richard Essner is a Surgical Oncologist, Professor of Surgery, Director of Surgical Oncology as well as the Co-Director of Melanoma and Cutaneous Oncology Research Program at the Saint John’s Cancer Institute.

After attending Emory University School of Medicine, Dr. Essner interned at Jackson Memorial Hospital which is affiliated with the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. He completed residency at the University of North Carolina, School of Medicine at Chapel Hill and completed fellowships in surgical oncology at University of California, Los Angeles and at the Saint John’s Cancer Institute.

Dr. Essner’s practice is focused on complex surgical oncology with a primary interest in caring for patients with melanoma and other cutaneous (skin) cancers as well as head and neck diseases.

Education and Training

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Dr. Essner has published and co-authored more than 100 publications. See articles at NIH.gov.

The association between facility volume and overall survival in patients with Merkel cell carcinoma.
Prevalence of Delta-Like Protein 3 Expression in Merkel Cell Carcinoma.
Diagnostic utility of dual 5-hydroxymethylcytosine/Melan-A immunohistochemistry in differentiating nodal nevus from metastatic melanoma: An effective first-line test for the workup of sentinel lymph node specimen.
Pelvic function in anuran jumping: Interspecific differences in the kinematics and motor control of the iliosacral articulation during take-off and landing.
Functional evolution of jumping in frogs: Interspecific differences in take-off and landing.
Movement patterns in leiopelmatid frogs: Insights into the locomotor repertoire of basal anurans.
Long-term clinical impact of sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer and cutaneous melanoma.
Factors predictive of the status of sentinel lymph nodes in melanoma patients from a large multicenter database.
Pharmacodynamic characterization of the efficacy signals due to selective BRAF inhibition with PLX4032 in malignant melanoma.
Landing in basal frogs: evidence of saltational patterns in the evolution of anuran locomotion.
Lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy in primary cutaneous melanoma.
EANM-EORTC general recommendations for sentinel node diagnostics in melanoma.
Importance of sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with thin melanoma.
Erratum to “Experimental frontiers for clinical applications: novel approaches to understanding mechanisms of lymph node metastases in melanoma”.
Interaction of an Overexpressed gamma-Tubulin with Microtubules In Vivo and In Vitro.
Monocyte-derived IL-10 expression predicts prognosis of stage IV melanoma patients.
Isolated tumor cells in the sentinel node affect long-term prognosis of patients with melanoma.
Defining the highway of lymphatic patterns for melanoma.
A Comparison of 3 tumor markers (MIA, TA90IC, S100B) in stage III melanoma patients.
Molecular characterization of inflammatory genes in sentinel and nonsentinel nodes in melanoma.
Natural history of melanoma in 773 patients with tumor-negative sentinel lymph nodes.
Sentinel-node biopsy or nodal observation in melanoma.
Surgical management of the groin lymph nodes in melanoma in the era of sentinel lymph node dissection.
Tumour-induced immune modulation of sentinel lymph nodes.
The role of surgery in treatment of stage IV melanoma.
PET-Probe: Evaluation of Technical Performance and Clinical Utility of a Handheld High-Energy Gamma Probe in Oncologic Surgery.
Lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy in primary cutaneous melanoma.
Can surgical therapy alone achieve long-term cure of melanoma metastatic to regional nodes?
Experimental frontiers for clinical applications: novel approaches to understanding mechanisms of lymph node metastases in melanoma.
Role of nuclear medicine in the management of cutaneous malignant melanoma.
Novel imaging techniques in melanoma.
Impact of sentinel node status and other risk factors on the clinical outcome of head and neck melanoma patients.
Sentinel lymph node biopsy and melanoma biology.
Innovations and challenges in melanoma: summary statement from the first Cambridge conference.
Melanoma recurrence patterns after negative sentinel lymphadenectomy.
Sentinel node biopsy for early-stage melanoma: accuracy and morbidity in MSLT-I, an international multicenter trial.
Sentinel lymphadenectomy does not increase the incidence of in-transit metastases in primary melanoma.
Quantitative analysis of melanoma-induced cytokine-mediated immunosuppression in melanoma sentinel nodes.
Contemporary surgical treatment of advanced-stage melanoma.
Factors predictive of tumor-positive nonsentinel lymph nodes after tumor-positive sentinel lymph node dissection for melanoma.
Lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy for primary and metastatic pulmonary malignant neoplasms.
Prolonged survival after complete resection of metastases from intraocular melanoma.
The role of fluorine-18 deoxyglucose positron emission tomography in the management of patients with metastatic melanoma: impact on surgical decision making.
Is sentinel lymph node mapping indicated for isolated local and in-transit recurrent melanoma?
Lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy for early-stage melanoma: therapeutic utility and implications of nodal microanatomy and molecular staging for improving the accuracy of detection of nodal micrometastases.
Surgical treatment of malignant melanoma.
Role of sentinel lymphadenectomy in thin invasive cutaneous melanomas.
Humoral immune response to a therapeutic polyvalent cancer vaccine after complete resection of thick primary melanoma and sentinel lymphadenectomy.
Prolonged survival after complete resection of disseminated melanoma and active immunotherapy with a therapeutic cancer vaccine.
Prognostic implications of thick (>or=4-mm) melanoma in the era of intraoperative lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy.
Prolonged survival of patients receiving active immunotherapy with Canvaxin therapeutic polyvalent vaccine after complete resection of melanoma metastatic to regional lymph nodes.
Enhanced humoral immune response correlates with improved disease-free and overall survival in American Joint Committee on Cancer stage II melanoma patients receiving adjuvant polyvalent vaccine.
Three-dimensional launch kinematics in leaping, parachuting and gliding squirrels.
Sentinel node biopsy: not only a staging tool?
Active immunotherapy by reinduction with a polyvalent allogeneic cell vaccine correlates with improved survival in recurrent metastatic melanoma.
Advances in FDG PET probes in surgical oncology.
Serum TA90 immune complex assay can predict outcome after resection of thick (> or =4 mm) primary melanoma and sentinel lymphadenectomy.
Dendritic cell function in sentinel nodes.
Characterization of Cep135, a novel coiled-coil centrosomal protein involved in microtubule organization in mammalian cells.
Does the tumor status of the regional lymph nodes really matter in melanoma?
Surgical and molecular approaches to the sentinel lymph nodes.
Does complete resection of melanoma metastatic to solid intra-abdominal organs improve survival?
Surgical resection for metastatic melanoma to the liver: the John Wayne Cancer Institute and Sydney Melanoma Unit experience.
Sentinel lymph nodes show profound downregulation of antigen-presenting cells of the paracortex: implications for tumor biology and treatment.
Serum TA90 antigen-antibody complex as a surrogate marker for the efficacy of a polyvalent allogeneic whole-cell vaccine (CancerVax) in melanoma.
Functional interleukin-4 receptor and interleukin-2 receptor common gamma chain in human gastric carcinoma: a possible mechanism for cytokine-based therapy.
Cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant immunotherapy: a new management paradigm for metastatic melanoma.
Accuracy of gamma probes in localizing radioactivity: in-vitro assessment and clinical implications.
Application of an [(18)F]fluorodeoxyglucose-sensitive probe for the intraoperative detection of malignancy.
Is the node of Cloquet the sentinel node for the iliac/obturator node group?
A review of the literature for whole-body FDG PET in the management of patients with melanoma.
Principles of sentinel lymph node identification: background and clinical implications.
Stereotactic radiosurgery in the treatment of metastatic disease to the brain.
Judging the therapeutic value of lymph node dissections for melanoma.
Stereotactic radiosurgery in the treatment of metastatic disease to the brain.
Filamentous polymers induced by overexpression of a novel centrosomal protein, Cep135.
Standardized probe-directed sentinel node dissection in melanoma.
Functional interleukin 4 receptor and interleukin 2 receptor common gamma-chain on human non-small cell lung cancers: novel targets for immune therapy.
Advantages of concurrent biochemotherapy modified by decrescendo interleukin-2, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and tamoxifen for patients with metastatic melanoma.
Long-term survival after complete resection of melanoma metastatic to the adrenal gland.
Function of a minus-end-directed kinesin-like motor protein in mammalian cells.
Validation of the accuracy of intraoperative lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy for early-stage melanoma: a multicenter trial. Multicenter Selective Lymphadenectomy Trial Group.
Prognostic significance of occult metastases detected by sentinel lymphadenectomy and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction in early-stage melanoma patients.
Lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy after wide local excision of primary melanoma.
Efficacy of lymphatic mapping, sentinel lymphadenectomy, and selective complete lymph node dissection as a therapeutic procedure for early-stage melanoma.
Active specific immunotherapy with polyvalent melanoma cell vaccine for patients with in-transit melanoma metastases.
Parotid region lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy for cutaneous melanoma.
Sentinel node localization in breast cancer.
Comparison of blue dye and probe-assisted intraoperative lymphatic mapping in melanoma to identify sentinel nodes in 100 lymphatic basins.
Gamma knife radiosurgery for metastatic melanoma: an analysis of survival, outcome, and complications.
Universal application of intraoperative lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy in solid neoplasms.
Kinetics of three lymphoscintigraphic agents in patients with cutaneous melanoma.
The zebrafish thyroid hormone receptor alpha 1 is expressed during early embryogenesis and can function in transcriptional repression.
Prognostic implications of p53 overexpression in cutaneous melanoma from sun-exposed and nonexposed sites.
Expression of a minus-end-directed motor protein induces Sf9 cells to form axon-like processes with uniform microtubule polarity orientation.
Intraoperative lymphatic mapping for early-stage melanoma of the head and neck.
Endothelial-selectin ligands sialyl Lewis(x) and sialyl Lewis(a) are differentiation antigens immunogenic in human melanoma.
The role of lymphoscintigraphy and sentinel node mapping in assessing patient risk in melanoma.
Interleukin 4 inhibits hepatocyte growth factor-induced invasion and migration of colon carcinomas.
Surgical resection for melanoma metastatic to the gastrointestinal tract.
Nonpalpable versus palpable invasive breast tumors treated with breast-conserving surgical management.
Characterization of a minus end-directed kinesin-like motor protein from cultured mammalian cells.
Interleukin 4 regulates G1 cell cycle progression in gastric carcinoma cells.
Intraoperative lymphatic mapping and selective cervical lymphadenectomy for early-stage melanomas of the head and neck.
Reirradiation for extremity soft tissue sarcomas. Local control and complications.
Production of tumor necrosis factor alpha and interferon gamma in interleukin-2-treated melanoma patients: correlation with clinical toxicity.
Differential effects of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and macrophage colony-stimulating factor on tumor necrosis factor and interleukin-1 production in human monocytes.
Influences of interleukins 2 and 4 on tumor necrosis factor production by murine mononuclear phagocytes.
Tumour necrosis factor production by IL-2-activated macrophages in vitro and in vivo.
Genetic analysis of the human tumor necrosis factor alpha/cachectin promoter region in a macrophage cell line.
IL-4 down-regulates IL-1 and TNF gene expression in human monocytes.
Overview of biological response modifiers.
Prognostic significance of melanoma arising in the scalp.

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