John Mansour, M.D.

Surgical Oncologist

John Mansour, M.D., Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, combines the skills of a surgeon, a scientist, and a patient care advocate to offer his patients the total package in cancer care.

He treats patients with malignancies of the stomach, pancreas, liver, bile duct, and other abdominal organs. He says that treating these cancers requires bringing your “A” game every single day.

“To be a good surgical oncologist, you can’t be just one thing,” Dr. Mansour says. “You have to be a skilled surgeon and a scientist who understands what the next steps in cancer care are five, 10, 20 years down the line. You have to be an oncologist who understands cancer, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other therapies. And you need personal skills to bring together all of those pieces with a patient and his or her family, which is not always easy to do.”

Empowering Patients

Dr. Mansour likes taking care of people who have complex diseases, and he believes that UT Southwestern is a great community and regional resource for difficult problems such as stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, and sarcomas.

“Other surgeons might see these challenging kinds of issues once a year or even once in their career. Our group sees these problems every week,” he says.

Dr. Mansour’s patients leave his office with two things: hope and a plan. He welcomes questions and also encourages his patients to learn as much about their condition as possible.

"I want my patients to be mini experts in their disease so they understand not just what I’m recommending but why I’m recommending it to them,” he says. “They’re making very big decisions, and I believe in keeping them informed."

Crafting the Future of Cancer Care

As leader of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Disease-Oriented Team at Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. Mansour oversees the clinical, research, and educational activities of all UT Southwestern gastrointestinal (GI) cancer programs. He’s also part of a national team that measures how well doctors and hospitals are caring for patients with hepatobiliary cancers.

Passionate about quality care, Dr. Mansour anticipates that the cutting-edge research being done today at UT Southwestern will allow doctors to treat cancers differently in the future. His own research focuses on genetic analysis of tumors and blood in order to better predict a particular tumor’s behavior, how aggressive it will be, and how well patients will tolerate a major operation.

He believes that such an individualized approach will revolutionize cancer care and make cancer much easier to treat. “I anticipate that we will develop individualized treatment for each patient that will help them live longer lives and have a better quality of life,” he says.