Medically reviewed by Geoffrey Shapiro, MD, PhD, and Christopher French, MD Although it is one of the most aggressive solid tumors in humans, NUT carcinoma responds better to treatment in some patients than others. Due to its rarity, specific statistics on incidence and prevalence are limited; it is estimated that NUT carcinoma is diagnosed in … Read more
Mantle cell lymphoma is a rare, often aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), a cancer that involves white blood cells known as lymphocytes, which help protect the body from disease. It is named for its origins in the mantle zone — a ring of cells within the lymph nodes where B cells (a type of … Read more
Medically reviewed by Michael J. Eck, MD, PhD Scientists have captured the most complete picture yet of a key molecular switch that is sometimes jammed in the “on” position in cancers. With the aid of recent advances in a tool known as cryo-electron microscopy, which can obtain crisp 3D images of large biological molecules, Dana-Farber … Read more
Many sports stars have helped support research and care at Dana-Farber by appearing on the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon presented by Arbella Insurance Foundation, but few have done so quite like pro football wide receiver-turned-broadcaster Jimmy Cefalo. When Cefalo was interviewed on-air during the August 2019 event at Fenway Park, he used the opportunity to share some … Read more
It’s no secret: Cancer treatments are powerful. It’s also no secret that these drugs can also harm healthy cells in the body, which can lead to side effects. It’s not uncommon for patients to feel nauseous or experience a loss of appetite as a result of treatment. While there are medications you can take to … Read more
Medically reviewed by Douglas Rubinson, MD, PhD Anal cancer is a type of cancer that forms in tissues of the anus. The anus is the opening of the rectum to the outside of the body and at the end of the gastrointestinal tract. What is the leading theory on why the incidence rate has risen … Read more
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
Steve Kelley is the quintessential glass half-full guy. Still, he realizes his reaction to learning he had an extremely rare cancer known as central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma may seem unusual. A few weeks after his June 2018 diagnosis, Kelley, then 64, gathered his family and friends together. He didn’t want to focus negatively on … Read more
While 80 to 90 percent of reported thyroid lumps are not cancerous, performing “neck checks” can help you become familiar with what your thyroid looks and feels like, so you can tell your health care professional if you notice any changes. How to feel for thyroid lumps Sit or stand up straight, and make sure … Read more
Medically reviewed by Martha Wadleigh, MD Leukemia arises from malfunctions in stem cells within the bone marrow that cause abnormal white blood cells to flood into the bloodstream. Leukemias are classified as either myelogenous (also called myeloid) or lymphocytic, depending on which types of white blood cells are affected. What is the difference between these types … Read more
Ali Mercy was an eight-year-old with relapsed acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in need of a stem cell transplant. First, however, his father Abrahim had to find a country willing to provide Ali with the life-saving procedure. Transplants were not performed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where Abrahim and Ali lived together in the city … Read more
For all their potential to curb or even cure some cancers, drugs known as immune checkpoint inhibitors come with a caveat: They’re effective in only a subset of patients. Predicting who those patients are, and understanding why others don’t respond as well, remains a major challenge. In a new study, researchers at Dana-Farber in collaboration … Read more
By Lyndsay McCaffery Recurrence. The word all cancer survivors know and fear. I don’t know about others, but I felt I was the one who was most definitely never getting cancer again. I worked hard to get on the other side of my diagnosis and long recovery. I put in the work writing in a … Read more
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
Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome (VHL) is a rare disorder in which tumors and cysts can arise in multiple organs and tissues. It affects about 10,000 people in the United States and is caused by a mutation in the VHL gene. The vast majority of people with the syndrome inherited a mutated copy of VHL from a … Read more
Melanoma is not a different disease from skin cancer. It is, rather, a form of skin cancer. Of the three major forms of skin cancer, melanoma is the rarest but also the most aggressive. It is diagnosed in more than 96,000 people in the United States each year, and patients generally have a good prognosis … Read more
If you could somehow unroll the DNA from a single one of our cells, the tiny thread would stretch about two meters. Our cells do just the opposite, spooling their DNA astonishingly tightly around proteins, into packages known as nucleosomes. These packages, which together make up our chromatin, need to dynamically open and close at … Read more
In their search for better treatments for breast, ovarian, and other cancers, young investigators Jennifer Guerriero, PhD, and Sarah Hill, MD, PhD, rely on a precious commodity — patient tissue samples obtained by surgeons in Dana-Farber’s Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers. Studies of these normal and cancerous tissues, which are collected, banked, and … Read more
Retired teacher Brad Davis doesn’t like talking about his cancer — not because he’s ashamed of it, but because he’s been able to move on from it. That wasn’t always guaranteed: While Davis is thriving on his current treatment plan, he was facing a much different scenario just one year ago. In 2018, Davis was … Read more
More than 60,000 new cases of adult leukemia are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Although it is one of the more common childhood cancers, leukemia occurs more often in older adults. How does leukemia develop in adults? Leukemia is a cancer of the body’s blood-forming tissues that results in large numbers of abnormal or immature white blood … Read more