​​​Retiree Relishing Life After Advanced Kidney Cancer Treatment 

The last thing Alan Rubin imagined he’d be doing after retiring from a successful career in financial services was helping his son run a hot dog cart.   Then he was diagnosed with stage III kidney cancer, and found himself in another unexpected locale: Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center. Like the decision to join his son’s business … Read more

Navigating the Mental Health Toll of Prostate Cancer and Its Side Effects 

Although early detection and treatment advances have significantly improved survival rates for patients with prostate cancer, the majority will face some form of sexual health side effect. Addressing these physical and emotional side effects is a priority for care teams at Dana-Farber.  But longstanding cultural barriers can often keep men from discussing sensitive issues like … Read more

Father with Stage IV Kidney Cancer Enjoys Wedding of a Lifetime

When Chuck Stravin was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma in 2015, one of his biggest fears was not living long enough to see his four young daughters get married. The disease later metastasized to his lungs as stage IV cancer, but thanks to groundbreaking clinical trials and a care team he considers family, Stravin is … Read more

Prostate Cancer Rates Raise Concerns: What You Should Know

Overall, cancer death rates have declined by 33% since 1991, according to a Jan. 2023 American Cancer Society report. Multiple cancers like leukemia, melanoma, and kidney cancer have seen significant declines in mortality due to great advances in treatments.   Prostate cancer rates had been on the decline for two decades, but the ACS report remarks that … Read more

Metastatic Prostate Cancer Can’t Slow Down Grandfather

Doug Kroc taught social studies for 40 years, but these days the retiree is more interested in making history than teaching it. Not the kind of events found in textbooks, but simple moments spent swimming and kayaking with his family or riding his bike along the backroads of Vermont. So when Kroc, 70, developed a … Read more

Newly Identified Regulator in Prostate Cancer Cells Could Serve as Drug Target for Advanced Tumors

Treating advanced prostate cancer typically involves surgery — to reduce levels of testosterone, which fuels the growth of tumors — or giving drugs that blockade the androgen receptor (AR), which responds to testosterone by stimulating cancer-growth genes. While these measures can keep the disease at bay initially, resistance almost always occurs as the androgen receptor … Read more

Newly FDA-Approved Therapy Offers Kidney Cancer Patient a Path Forward

Chuck Stravin carries a white three-ring binder to all of his oncology appointments. Inside are his appointment notes, information about his treatment history, and the latest research and advancements regarding his disease. Nestled alongside these documents also sits a family photo of Stravin, his wife Liz, and their four daughters. Stravin’s family has been instrumental … Read more

Combination Immunotherapy Holds Promise for Patients with Rare Bladder Cancer

A woman recently came to Bradley McGregor, MD, an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in severe pain with extreme fatigue. Her squamous cell bladder cancer, a rare type for which traditional treatment is generally less effective, had advanced, and it appeared that she had no other options. But timing is everything. McGregor was conducting a … Read more

The Latest Efforts in Precision Oncology for Advanced Prostate Cancer

The management of advanced prostate cancer is rapidly evolving with the application of precision treatments based on genomic testing of tumors’ altered DNA. With recent biomarker-driven drug approvals and increased clinical use of genomic testing, there are a number of opportunities to expand upon this framework. Researchers are calling for increased collaboration and new strategies. … Read more

Biomarker Search Reveals Unexpected Associations in Treatment of Advanced Kidney Cancer

Scientists are gratified when a clinical trial reveals whether one treatment — often an experimental therapy or drug combination — is superior to another. But researchers then often look more deeply into the data, searching for characteristics of tumors associated with a treatment’s effectiveness, or lack of it. In today’s world of precision medicine, identifying … Read more

The Most Significant Cancer Research Advances of the 2010s

It was a decade that began with the electrifying results of a clinical trial for a revolutionary new cancer therapy and ended with a Nobel Prize in Medicine for very different cancer-related research. In between those dramatic bookends, the 2010s were packed with progress, with discoveries leading to the FDA’s 2017 approval of the first … Read more

Nobel Prize Research Was a Winning Formula for Patient with Kidney Cancer

Early on an October morning, Shaun Tierney started a promising new treatment for his stage IV kidney cancer. Anxious to tell his longtime oncologist, he texted Toni Choueiri, MD, director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber. What he didn’t expect was that Choueiri would have his own big news: “Kaelin … Nobel … Read more