Bile Duct Cancer Expert Rachna Shroff Dies

ASCO joined the oncology community in mourning Rachna T. Shroff, MD, MS, FASCO. She had died at 47 after a battle with an aggressive cancer. The society’s tribute named her a renowned expert in gastrointestinal cancers and a dedicated volunteer whose career had centered on some of the field’s hardest diseases.

In Arizona the loss landed as both institutional and personal. She was associate director of clinical investigations at the University of Arizona Cancer Center and chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the College of Medicine–Tucson, and she had kept the rest of the stack until the end: co-leader of the Gastrointestinal Clinical Research Team, professor with tenure in the Department of Medicine, medical director for the Oncology Service Line with Banner Health. She had been one of the foremost experts on pancreatic and biliary tract cancers.

She returned to Arizona in 2018 after the first eight years of her career on the faculty at MD Anderson Cancer Center. She had grown up in Tucson. Back home she grew the gastrointestinal clinical research program and worked to improve access to clinical trials for patients across southern Arizona.

Cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer, sat at the center of that effort. The disease is rare in the West. It is often incurable at diagnosis. Treatment options had historically been limited. Shroff led clinical trials investigating new treatments for biliary cancers

“It is our role and responsibility to have clinical trials available to the patients that come to see us and to ideally have a trial available to every single patient that walks through the door, to be able to offer them something cutting-edge, different, and innovative,” she said.

She held that standard after her own life-limiting cancer arrived. More than $1.35 million came in within weeks. In September, while living with that diagnosis, she helped establish the Conquer Cancer–Rachna Shroff FASCO Endowed Young Investigator Award in Biliary Cancers to support future researchers working on biliary cancers and to help the next generation of gastrointestinal oncologists launch their research careers. She raised the money while she continued working to advance research and treatment options for other patients, still inside the same disease group the award would fund.

She had stated her personal motto in a 2024 interview with ASCO Connection: “If you can’t find the sunshine, be the sunshine.” She stayed with the fundraising through those weeks so investigators just starting out would have backing for biliary cancer research. The endowment was built by a dying expert for the next generation in the same rare cancers she had spent her career treating.

In 1993, while she was still in school, the Osler Fellowship gave her a place in a laboratory at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. She came from an Indian-origin family raised in Tucson. Her mother, Amita Trivedi, was a nephrologist. Her father, Devendar Trivedi, was a biochemist. She had a sister, Neema Sahni. Her husband was Puneet Shroff.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Brown University and a medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University. She completed her medical oncology fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2010 and spent the first eight years of her career on that faculty. She authored more than 80 scientific publications and delivered over 130 professional presentations. She co-chaired the Hepatobiliary Subcommittee of the Southwest Oncology Group and chaired ASCO’s GI ASCO 2024 meeting.

She moved through ASCO’s Leadership Development Program in 2021-2022, took a seat on the Nominating Committee, and chaired the Cancer Communications Committee. The calendar filled further: associate editor of ASCO Daily News, the Meeting & Member Publications Editorial Board, peer review for the JCO journals. Mentoring ran through the Virtual Mentoring Program, the Oncology Summer Internship, and the Women’s Networking Center. On the gastrointestinal side she worked the GI Cancers Symposium Program Committee, GI track planning for the Annual Meeting, and the expert panels that shaped GI-related guidelines.

ASCO became a professional home. “ASCO has been so integral in my development as a leader and as an oncologist… [It] is, in my opinion, the best professional society that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.... [My] favorite time of day, I always say, is whenever I’m doing something for ASCO,” she said.

Photographs show her dancing with a Bollywood troupe linked to Houston’s Anjali Center. ASCO sent its deepest condolences to her loved ones, friends, colleagues, and patients, said it was humbled by her dedication to the organization and to the field, and said it would strive to honor her legacy of commitment and altruism. To help carry her work forward, the society asked people to make a donation to Conquer Cancer in her memory. Conquer Cancer would continue to fund new researchers through the award she had put in place. Early-career investigators working on biliary cancers remained the people the endowment was built to support.