In honor of Brain Tumor Awareness Month, David Reardon, MD, and Patrick Wen, MD, of Dana-Farber’s Center for Neuro-Oncology, went live on Facebook to answer questions about brain cancer. The doctors discussed advice for brain tumor patients, answered audience questions, and described the difference between the two major categories of brain cancers—primary cancer, developed in … Read more
Mark W. Kieran, MD, PhD, director of Pediatric Medical Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, spoke to pediatric patient families in a recent Facebook Live Webchat addressing pediatric brain tumor care. Kieran answered questions from audience members about the most common of the 300 brain tumor types that occur in children, including … Read more
Brain tumors can be among the most challenging cancers to treat. The blood-brain barrier, a natural defense mechanism that shields the brain from harm, can also prevent cancer treatments from reaching tumors. “It can be difficult to get treatments effectively into the brain,” says David Reardon, MD, clinical director of Dana-Farber’s Center for Neuro-Oncology. However, … Read more
Historically, brain tumors have been some of the most challenging types of cancers. A protective barrier around the brain—called the “blood-brain barrier”—can prevent cancer treatments from reaching the tumor. Recently, increased interest in immunotherapy has given new hope to getting through this barrier. “We know the immune system can get into the brain to fight … Read more
Eagerly awaited new data from trials of immunotherapy drugs, vaccines to treat brain tumors, and improved treatments for blood cancers sparked waves of optimism at the year’s biggest cancer meeting. The 2015 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) drew about 30,000 cancer specialists to Chicago May 29 – June 2. Immunotherapy, … Read more
Brain cancer takes a variety of forms – and research to better understand and treat it is progressing on a variety of fronts. One area of focus is the tumor microenvironment the skein of tissues and blood vessels that feed and support a tumor. Researchers are exploring how newly formed brain tumors interact with surrounding … Read more
This post originally appeared on HealthHub, a blog from Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Interested in seeing images of his brain, Steven Keating, currently a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, volunteered for a research study while attending school in Canada in 2007. When researchers returned his brain scans, they delivered some startling news. “The … Read more
Every year, about 4,700 children in the United States are diagnosed with brain cancer – making it the most common solid tumor in children. It is also one of the most difficult cancers to treat. Brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children under age 10 and the second leading cause of … Read more
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has tremendous potential to advance healthcare and improve the lives of everyone. But successful clinical translation requires evaluating the performance of AI models on large and diverse real-world datasets. MLCommons, an open global engineering consortium dedicated to making machine learning better for everyone, announced on July 17, 2023, a major milestone toward … Read more
When the time came for Jeffrey Ferreira to undergo a stem cell transplant for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), his Dana-Farber hematologist, Corey Cutler, MD, MPH, had some intriguing news: he was eligible for a clinical trial of a new approach to lowering the risk of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a common and sometimes severe aftereffect … Read more
When scientists named microglial cells after the Greek word for “glue,” they thought it conveyed all one needed to know about the cells. The cells’ role, it was believed, began and ended with providing connective tissue for neurons, the information carriers of the nervous system. Research over many years has shown that moniker to … Read more
Langley Perer thought her breast cancer was in the rearview mirror. In 2017, she had received a shocking diagnosis at age 35 of ductal in situ carcinoma (DCIS), the earliest form of breast cancer. “As far as I knew, I had no family history of breast cancer,” she says. DCIS is sometimes referred to as … Read more
An exercise-related hormone, irisin, administered to animals with a model of Parkinson’s disease reduced nerve degeneration and symptoms associated with the progressive movement disorder, say scientists from Dana-Farber and Johns Hopkins Medicine. About one million people in the United States, and 10 million people worldwide are living with Parkinson’s, which is characterized by tremors, slowed … Read more
Results of several phase 3 trials and dozens of other studies led by Dana-Farber researchers were presented online and in person June 3-7 at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the world’s largest clinical cancer research meeting. Some of the research reports presented by Dana-Farber investigators include: Improved progression-free … Read more
Karl Helfrich, PhD, has been a cyclist for 40 years. When he was diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor, he thought that might be the end of his hobby. Instead, he was only off the bike for three weeks, and continued to ride the roads near his home in Falmouth, Mass. while undergoing radiation and … Read more
At work on the afternoon of December 27, 2018, Chris Barnett felt his eyes lock momentarily onto the wall. Thinking he was just tired, he stood up to go get a sandwich. The next thing he knew, he couldn’t move and fell straight to the floor, and felt frozen in his own body, “like somebody pulled the … Read more
When breast cancer spreads, or metastasizes, it’s more likely to travel to some parts of the body than others. The most common sites of metastasis include the bones, brain, liver, or lungs. It’s rare for patients with early-stage breast cancer, which has not spread beyond the breast or adjacent lymph nodes, to develop a brain metastasis: The … Read more
A compound that sparks an immune system attack on cancer while also lowering tumor cells’ defenses against such an attack is showing promise in its first clinical trial in patients with advanced or metastatic cancers. One of those with the best result is a former U.S. Marine and Afghanistan war veteran, Josh Mahoney. Mahoney, of … Read more
For decades, retinoic acid has been a key part of the arsenal against the childhood cancer neuroblastoma. For just as long, scientists have wondered exactly how it works. The answer, Dana-Farber researchers have found, is by reprogramming the activity of two crucial pairs of genes with such precision that the drug almost seems to have … Read more
Having come to fame as the basis of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines for COVID-19, messenger RNA — or mRNA — is in many ways the molecule of the moment. Its newfound prominence is also raising its profile as a powerful tool in cancer research. Scientists are using it learn how cancer cells sometimes disarm … Read more