Catherine Mezzacappa, MD, MPH

I am a fellow in the Division of Digestive Diseases. My research is focused on better understanding the relationship between metabolic disease (diabetes, steatotic liver disease), progression of liver fibrosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma for the purposes of improving clinical risk stratification. I am also interested in gene-environment interactions and how they influence the implementation science of screening for gastrointestinal cancers. Prior to beginning a career in medicine, I completed a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) with a concentration in Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, at which time I was awarded the Dr. Theodore Colton Prize for Excellence in Epidemiology. I then worked in health system program monitoring and evaluation for several international health non-governmental organizations prior to attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and then joining the Internal Medicine residency at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Selected publications:

Mezzacappa C, Mahmud N, Serper M, et al. Hepatocellular carcinoma is associated with diabetes and longitudinal blood glucose control in a national cohort with cirrhosis. Hepatology Communications. (2023). https://journals.lww.com/hepcomm/fulltext/2023/12010/hcc_is_associated_with_diabetes_and_longitudinal.21.aspx

Mezzacappa C, Rossi R, Jaffe A, Taddei TH, Strazzabosco M. Community-level factors associated with hepatocellular carcinoma incidence and mortality: an observational registry study. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-23-0902

Mezzacappa C, Wang Z, Lu L, Risch H, Taddei TH, Yu H. Detection of hepatocellular carcinoma methylation markers in salivary DNA. Bioscience Reports. (2024). doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/BSR20232063

Mezzacappa C, Larki NR, Skanderson M, Park LS, Brandt C, Hauser RG, Justice A, Yang Y-X, Wang, L. Development and validation of case-finding algorithms to identify pancreatic cancer in the Veterans Health Administration. Dig Dis Sci. (2024). doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-024-08324-w

Wang LL, Grimshaw AA, Mezzacappa C, Larki NR, Yang Y-X, Justice AC. Do polygenic risk scores add to clinical data in predicting pancreatic cancer? A scoping review. https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-23-0468

Rodriguez NJ, Zheng N, Mezzacappa C, Canavan M, Laine L, Shung D. Disparities in access to endoscopy for patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding presenting to emergency departments. Gastroenterology. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2022.10.001

Singh V, Mezzacappa C, Gershkovich P, et al. Systems approach to enhance Lynch syndrome diagnosis through tumour testing. J Med Genet. (2022). https://jmg.bmj.com/content/jmedgenet/early/2022/09/17/jmg-2022-108770.full.pdf

Zhang Y*, Mezzacappa C*, Shen L, et al. Cancer tracking system improves timeliness of liver cancer care at a Veterans Hospital: A comparison of cohorts before and after implementation of an automated care coordination tool. PLOS Digital Health. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0000080

*Shared first authorship.