Marcus M. Malek, MD, FACS, FAAP, is a pediatric surgeon and is certified in both general surgery and pediatric surgery by the American Board of Surgery. He is clinical director of the division, director of pediatric surgical oncology, founding member of the Pediatric Melanoma Center, and member of the Vascular Anomalies Center. Dr. Malek is also assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, N.J., and completed his residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, followed by a pediatric surgery fellowship at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and a pediatric surgical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Dr. Malek’s clinical interests focus on pediatric and adolescent surgical oncology, including neuroblastoma, Wilms tumor, melanoma, metastatic disease, and other solid tumors. His surgical interests also include advanced minimally invasive surgery, pediatric colorectal disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and chest wall deformities. Dr. Malek is funded by the National Institute of Health/National Cancer Institute for his research focusing on Intraoperative Molecular Imaging in Pediatric Surgical Oncology, including fluorescence-guided, and radio-guided surgery. He has published 66 articles and 6 book chapters in peer-reviewed journals and has presented at 51 local, national, and international conferences. Dr. Malek is actively involved in the Children’s Oncology Group Renal Tumor and Surgical Committees. He is also a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Surgeons, American Pediatric Surgical Association, Association of Academic Surgeons, International Society of Pediatric Surgical Oncologists, and the Pediatric Trauma Society. Dr. Malek is also a dedicated husband and father of two.
Marcus Malek, MD director of Pediatric Surgical Oncology at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, directs a unique research program focused on improving surgical outcomes in pediatric tumors through use of novel molecular imaging technology. Towards this end, he and his lab team are developing new surgical tracers to guide surgeons to the tumor, facilitate safe resection, and confirm that the entire tumor was removed.
Complete surgical resection of tumors is critical to providing the best possible patient outcomes, but unfortunately, incomplete resection is a common occurrence. A significant program being pursued by Dr. Malek and his team is a dual-labeled, tumor-specific tracer, that will provide both visual and audible signals within the tumor that can be detected using existing surgical tools. Although the project is specifically targeting pediatric neuroblastoma and osteosarcoma, ultimately the technology can also be applied to other types of pediatric tumors.
Localization of Pulmonary Nodules in Children
Pulmonary nodules have various etiologies, and thoracoscopic biopsy is typically used for diagnostic and therapeutic resection in children. However, subpleural and subcentimeter lesions can be extremely difficult to visualize. The Malek Lab is leading a multi-center study to evaluate the extent to which image-guided localization techniques can assist in detection of pulmonary nodules.