Frank E. Adair, MD, FACS

Chair, Committee on the Treatment of Malignant Diseases, 1937–1939; and Chair, Committee on Cancer, 1939–1947

Frank E. Adair, MD, FACS, had perhaps the longest tenure of any chair of the Commission on Cancer (CoC). He led the forerunner of the CoC—the Committee on the Treatment of Malignant Diseases (CTMD) and the Committee on Cancer from 1937 to 1947. Dr. Adair was attending surgeon at Memorial Hospital in New York and chief of the breast service, as well as professor of surgery at the Cornell University School of Medicine. He was particularly noted for his surgical management of breast cancer.

In 1937, when Dr. Adair assumed the leadership of the CTMD, there were 240 cancer clinics approved by the American College of Surgeons. During his tenure, a relationship between the College and the relatively new National Cancer Institute was established. In his 1939 report, Dr. Adair urged surgeons to embrace the benefit of therapeutic radiology (radiation oncology). He also was cognizant of the impending war in Europe but longed for the day when cancer meetings would include physicians from other countries and be held in Europe or other locations around the world.

One of Dr. Adair’s goals was to improve the education of family physicians in cancer diagnosis, especially breast cancer. He believed that the College should take a greater role in this process. He also was a great advocate for registries and believed that surgeons should enter patients who were at least five years past their surgical treatment and, therefore, theoretically cured. This was definitely the forerunner of the National Cancer Database! From 1943 to 1945, although there were no formal CTMD meetings held due to WWII, Dr. Adair reported that 498 patient records of five-year cures were voluntarily contributed by 34 surgeons. Sadly, Dr. Adair noted that during 1943, the CTMD lost Drs. George Crile and Mont Reid due to their deaths.

In 1946, Dr. Adair became national president of the American Cancer Society. Through his leadership, the collaboration between the American Cancer Society and the American College of Surgeons was significantly strengthened in the mid-1940s. Dr. Adair died in January 1982 at the age of 94. Through his efforts over a 10-year period, the forerunner of the CoC flourished and paved the way for the success of the CoC as we know it today.

Written by Frederick L. Greene, MD, FACS 

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