Hannah Abrams, MD

Research Goals

  1. Make the cancer experience better for patients.
  2. Make it easier to generate new data to help people with rare cancers.
  3. Reduce waste in cancer care.

Support

I am currently supported through the Anderson Family Sarcoma Fellowship, the Hope Foundation Secondary Data Analysis Grant, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology/Conquer Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award (ASCO YIA). Here’s a selection of my work:

Patient Experience & Burden of Care

  • Logistical burdens, like transportation, time costs, and time spent coordinating care are a big burden for cancer patients and caregivers – yet they’re often under-discussed in both the research literature and in clinical interventions. I’ve used a variety of methods to deeply describe these logistics and connect them to important outcomes, like financial toxicity, ability to participate in research, and access to specialized treatments. Some papers include:
    • Abrams HR, Starks H, Bandini L, Harrington T, Percival MM, Walter RB, Russell K, Mawad R, Appelbaum J, Sorror ML, Halpern AB. National Landscape of Logistical and Nonmedical Requirements for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, 2026. 
    • Abrams HR, Sun Q, Fedorenko CR, Li L, Wright W, Kreizenbeck KL, Kestner S, Ramsey SD, Shankaran V. Impact of financial fragility on emergency department (ED) and inpatient (IP) visits among cancer patients in Washington state. ASCO Quality Symposium, 2025.
    • Abrams HR, Durbin S, Huang CX, Johnson SF, Nayak RK, Zahner GJ, Peppercorn J. Financial toxicity in cancer care: origins, impact, and solutions. Translational Behavioral Medicine, 2021.
    • Abrams HR, Leeds HS, Russell HV, Hellsten MB. Factors Influencing Family Burden in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Encounters. Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews, 2019.

Clinical Trial Efficiency

  • A key interest of mine is how to take this ‘care delivery’ lens and use it to make clinical trials more efficient, especially for people with rare cancers. My current work focuses on understanding and communicating the “time costs” or “time commitments” of a clinical trial, in order to make it easier for patients to know what to expect when they join a study & easier for them to stay enrolled once they are taking part. I also work with Dr. Taran Gujral and the TRACER initiative to make sure our sarcoma patients are represented in these groundbreaking translational science efforts, and take part in leading sarcoma clinical trials through our clinical research group.
    • Abrams HR, Keating NL, Kyle MA. Patient administrative burden in oncology clinical trials: Results of a national survey. Poster presentation, ASCO Quality Symposium, 2025.
    • Abrams HR, Loggers ET, Wagner MJ, Kim EY, Schaub SK, Roberts JL, Brinkmann E, Thompson M, Moore R, Johnson R, Baroudi M, Morin N, Cranmer LD. A Phase 1 Study of Neoadjuvant Cabozantinib in Combination with Radiation Therapy for Sarcomas of the Extremities. American Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2026.
    • Upcoming/Ongoing Projects:
      • Clinical Trial Time Costs: Improving Communication and Supporting Participation (SWOG Hope Foundation, ASCO YIA)
      • Measuring and Communicating Clinical Trial Time Costs
      • Clinical Collaborator; Molecular Characterization Of Rare Tumors/TRACER

Drug Waste

  • Drug waste is a huge, preventable source of financial waste in the US cancer care system. It’s often invisible and hard to capture: excess medication thrown out because a prescription changed, wasted drug in the pharmacy because a vial is mis-sized. I have modeled strategies to reduce IV drug waste and am collaborating with drug repurposing initiatives to reduce waste of oral pills.
    • Abrams HR, Chen AW, Banerjee R. Opportunity Strikes for Reducing Cancer Drug Waste: Bortezomib as an Example of Vial Mis-Sizing in Oncology. JCO Oncology Practice, 2024.
    • Abrams HR, Liu A, Copeland V, Cranmer L. Waste Not, Want Not: Modeling Strategies to Reduce Trabectedin Drug Waste. Connective Tissue Oncology Society Annual Meeting 2024, November 2024.
    • Upcoming/Ongoing Projects:
      • Collaboration with YesRx, a nonprofit drug repository

My PubMed Bibliography is kept here and Google Scholar page is here.