Heather H. Cheng, MD, PhD

Have you had a personal experience with cancer, and what did it mean for you?

I didn’t set out to be a prostate cancer specialist, but this disease came very close to home when three members of my immediate family were affected by — and two ultimately died of — prostate cancer during my training. My father-in-law had metastatic prostate cancer for 16 years and maintained a high quality of life for most of that time. My grandfather also had metastatic prostate cancer and lived to the age of 96. There was a point when he had the option to participate in clinical trials, and he made the choice to forgo more treatment. His decision informs how I think about not just my excitement for new clinical trials as a physician and researcher, but also about the value of meeting each patient where they are, understanding their priorities and giving them access to the best treatment that makes sense for them.

What do you think patients appreciate most about the way you care for them?

I strive to offer information, guidance and support with the hope of making the path forward less frightening. Thanks to new scientific developments, clinical trials and treatments, oncology is always evolving, making it possible to instill hope into every day. Your quality of life is a high priority for me. I enjoy the teamwork involved in supporting you and your loved ones through treatment and survivorship.

Provider Background

Specialty: Medical Oncology

Area of clinical practice

Genitourinary cancers, high risk prevention

Prostate cancer, prostate cancer genetics, bladder cancer, testicular cancer

I am the director of Fred Hutch’s Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic, which helps bring leading-edge genetic and genomic discoveries to patients. Among the first of its kind in the country, the clinic provides genetic counseling and testing, matches patients with precision oncology clinical trials and provides opportunities for cancer prevention and early detection.

My research interests include studying the inherited genetics of prostate cancer risk, the relationship to cancer-specific mutations and the genomics of prostate cancer (how sets of genes within a tumor behave). A better understanding of the molecular genetics and genomics of an individual's prostate cancer may serve as precision biomarkers to help guide treatment decisions and clinical trial options, potentially avoiding unhelpful treatments. In some cases, this knowledge could be used to inform relatives about cancer risk and what can be done to reduce that risk.