Physician Spotlight: Abdominal Cancer Surgeon Offers New Hope to Patients With Complex Cases

Ibrahim Nassour, MD, MSCS, has a passion for surgical oncology that stems from his desire to help cure cancer patients so they can continue to live fulfilling lives with their loved ones.

Nassour, an assistant professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology in the University of Florida College of Medicine, specializes in surgeries for abdominal cancers.

He is one of only about 20 medical doctors in Florida to perform cytoreductive surgery, or CRS, and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy, or HIPEC, to treat abdominal cancer in adult patients — a program he launched at UF Health in 2021. The six- to 12-hour procedure starts with Nassour and his team removing all visible tumors from the abdominal cavity.

After tissue removal, the team pumps a hot chemotherapy solution into the abdomen for 90 minutes, which helps kill any remaining cancer cells not visible to the team. After treatment, the patient remains in the hospital for seven to 14 days for regular checkups.

“This program was imperative to start at UF so we can give our patient population access to this therapy, which can prolong their life,” Nassour said.

Nassour is also leading the way in performing a robotic version of a procedure for patients with pancreatic cancer called the Whipple. Very few Whipple procedures across the United States are done robotically, Nassour said.

A tried-and-true surgical approach to removing tumors, the Whipple is a complex surgery that removes the “head” of the pancreas, gallbladder, bile duct, and parts of the stomach and small intestine. Then, these organs are reconnected to allow normal digestion processes to resume.

Traditionally, the surgery is performed using a large incision, which requires a weeklong hospital stay and several weeks of healing.

Two years ago, Nassour offered the procedure as a robotic surgery — using small incisions for a minimally invasive approach, maximizing his focus on patient-centered care. The team was the first to offer it in Gainesville at the time.

“It can be a lifesaving operation, but we are always looking for ways to improve upon it,” Nassour said. “One of the ways we can do this is by performing it robotically, which minimizes postoperative pain and also shortens the patient’s length of stay following the procedure.”

Named for the surgeon who pioneered it, the Whipple is a complex operation to begin with. Using a robot to execute it requires specialized training.

In each robotic Whipple surgery, Nassour uses the da Vinci Xi, a system that allows the surgeon to direct a robot’s mechanical “arms” to carefully execute each step, simultaneously displaying its minute movements on high-definition monitors.

“The level of care we can exercise with this is very precise,” Nassour said. “And, for a surgery like the Whipple, every detail matters.”

Nassour, who was inspired by his physician father, studied medicine at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and completed his general surgery residency at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He also trained at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in complex general surgical oncology.

A member of the UF Health Cancer Center, his research specializes in regional cancer therapies for metastatic disease, and he has research interests in robotic gastric and pancreato-biliary surgeries.

He joined UF Health in the fall of 2021 and performed the first HIPEC procedure at UF Health in December 2021 and the first robotic Whipple in August 2022.