Radioligand therapy is an innovative medicine that specifically targets cancer cells. Instead of using chemicals to kill the cancer, it uses radioactivity, a sub-atomic physical phenomenon that can damage cells. Several radioligand therapies, which also may be called radiopharmaceutical therapy or theranostics, are approved for the treatment of a range of cancers, including prostate cancer … Read more
New approaches to treatment are improving outcomes for patients with aggressive prostate cancer, which is prostate cancer that has spread or is at higher risk of spreading. In addition, new tests are helping guide treatment choices as more treatment options become available. Therapies used to treat aggressive prostate cancer include chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and newer … Read more
Advances in cancer treatments depend on clinical trials of new drugs and other therapies. Nearly all cancer drugs in use today were tested in clinical trials. But in the United States, only 3 percent of cancer patients participate in these studies. Part of the reason is that there are many myths and misunderstandings that can keep patients … Read more
Clinical trials assess the safety and efficacy of new cancer drugs or drug combinations. The data and learnings these studies collect help regulators determine if the treatments should be approved and made broadly available to patients. Clinical researchers conduct clinical trials at cancer institutes, medical centers, clinics, and hospitals worldwide, all under strict guidelines. Many … Read more
Many animals, including house pets, produce their own vitamin C. Early human ancestors did too. But they lost the ability about 60 million years ago, trading the health benefits of vitamin C production for the ability to produce more energy. Yet vitamin C is still an essential nutrient for humans. Without it, humans develop scurvy, … Read more
The human genome is a sequence of Ts, Gs, Cs, and As that is about 3 billion letters long. And, says Bradley Bernstein, MD, PhD, chair of Dana-Farber’s Department of Cancer Biology, “there’s no dictionary or guide for reading it.” Bernstein is trying to make such a resource. The efforts so far, carried out by … Read more
In recent decades, rates of some cancers, such as colorectal cancer, have been rising in young adults under the age of 50. One possible explanation for this rise is a parallel rise in obesity rates and changes in diet, activity levels and lifestyle. However, says Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, director of Dana-Farber’s Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer … Read more
As we age, we may turn down the volume on our music and dial down the number of late nights, but deep inside our bodies, expression levels of a gene called midkine are ratcheting upward. This uptick appears to have impact on our health. New work from the Dana-Farber lab of breast cancer researcher Kornelia … Read more
In the family of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) proteins, CDK5 always seemed to be a misfit. Despite being structurally similar to other CDKs, and despite the “cyclin” in its name, it did not participate in the family business of ushering cells through the cycle of growth and division. Or so scientists thought, and textbooks said. In … Read more
When breast cancer metastasizes, it often heads for the brain, where it can be exceptionally difficult to root out. The key to preventing the spread of the cancer, or thwarting it if it does reach the brain, is to understand the mechanism that turns stationary tumor cells into nomadic intruders. In a recent study, a … Read more
A white patient looking for a stem cell donor has about a 75% chance of finding a fully-matched unrelated donor in the U.S. NMDP Registry. A fully matched donor has the same human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type, a set of eight genetic variables that dictate how the immune system communicates. Finding a fully matched donor … Read more
Small cell lung cancer broadly consists of four molecular subtypes, three of which are driven by expression of proteins called transcription factors. Targeting these transcription factors has been a long-held goal, yet currently there are no medicines that target them directly. Rather, patients today receive standard-of-care treatment consisting of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Within a year, … Read more
In trial after clinical trial, metastatic colorectal cancer has been largely undeterred by immune checkpoint inhibitors. Although these drugs have shown effectiveness in Hodgkin lymphoma, lung cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, and nearly a dozen other malignancies, their track record against colorectal cancer has been lackluster, particularly for patients with the most common subtype of … Read more
Natural killer (NK) cells are white blood cells that serve as a part of the body’s first line of defense against infections and cancers. Along with T cells and B cells, NK cells have specialized roles as part of the immune system and have shown potential for being used in cancer immunotherapy. Their effectiveness is still being … Read more
This post was adapted from a Broad Institute post by Allessandra DiCorato. Over the last two decades, researchers have discovered thousands of genetic mutations in cancer. But understanding how they affect the growth and spread of tumors in the body remains challenging because each patient’s tumor can have many different mutations. Now, scientists have used … Read more
Investigators led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Kimberly Stegmaier, MD, have discovered that knocking out a protein regulator in Ewing sarcoma cells causes the tumor cells to die from an overdose of a cancer-promoting protein. The regulator, a protein known as TRIM8, is critical to the survival of Ewing sarcoma cells because it controls the levels … Read more
Cancer vaccines are a form of immunotherapy aimed at enhancing the immune system’s ability to recognize and attack cancer cells, or to protect against certain forms of cancer caused by viruses. Vaccine can help prevent some cancers There are two approved preventive vaccines directed against cancer-causing viruses. Vaccines against cancer-causing or other infectious microbes typically … Read more
What is BPDCN? Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN) is a rare but aggressive blood cancer that can affect the skin, blood, and bone marrow. It has characteristics similar to leukemias and lymphomas, but almost always first appears as lesions in the skin. What are the treatment options for BPDCN? The first drug that was … 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
Most patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) now have several options for first-line therapy, thanks to new clinical trial results and novel targeted agents. Many patients with CLL, a slowly progressive blood cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many white blood cells, don’t need immediate treatment but can be observed — sometimes for many years … Read more