A new online assessment tool developed at Dana-Farber can help rapidly identify people who should undergo genetic testing for Lynch syndrome, an inherited disorder that greatly increases the lifetime risk of colorectal, endometrial, ovarian, stomach, and other cancers. An estimated 1 in 279 individuals – nearly a million people in the United States – carry … Read more
If the human immune system was a powerful racing car, you could say that scientists in the past few years have gained unprecedented control over how to make it accelerate, and what causes it to slow or stop. This knowledge has spawned new immunotherapy drugs that are delivering dramatic benefits to some patients with advanced … Read more
Medically reviewed by Thanh U. Barbie, MD There’s little reason to worry that a biopsy or other surgical procedure will allow cancer cells to escape and spread within the body, specialists say. “A common patient concern is that biopsies may cause microscopic cells from cancers to metastasize to other parts of the body,” says Thanh … Read more
In the fall of 2015, at the age of 44 – young for a person to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – Doron Broman was stunned to learn he had a large tumor on his pancreas that had metastasized to the liver. Facing only months to live, Broman would find himself in the right place … Read more
Treatment of blood-related, or hematologic, cancers is seizing on insights into the basic genetic wiring of cancer cells and the body’s system for finding and attacking those cells. Research presentations at the annual American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in December gave evidence of how broad, and rapid, the progress is. Targeted therapies, new combinations … Read more
For patients with advanced head and neck cancers, immune-based therapies have started to show results against these hard-to-treat tumors. Two immunotherapy drugs were approved in 2016 for use when standard treatments failed, and many other agents are being tested in clinical trials. Immunotherapies work by enhancing the body’s natural defenses against malignancies, and have made … Read more
Men diagnosed with non-metastatic prostate cancer now have access to a new tool on the TrueNTH USA website to help them prepare for their first meeting with a cancer physician. The tool, called Personal Patient Profile-Prostate (P3P), was created by Dana-Farber researchers and is now available to all men with non-metastatic prostate cancer though TrueNTH … Read more
Along with chemotherapy, radiation therapy is a common method for treating cancer; about half of patients receive the therapy, which uses high-energy radiation to shrink tumors and kill cancer cells, during the course of their treatment. While radiation therapy is effective against cancer cells, it also leaves its mark on any normal cells it comes … Read more
Precision cancer medicine is an evolving approach to cancer care that personalizes treatment based on each patient’s unique genetic mutations. Since 2011, Dana-Farber has used its Profile research project, in partnership with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital, to gather adult and pediatric patients’ tumor tissues and detect genetic alterations that may hold … Read more
For patients with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable cancer that affects blood plasma cells, there are many new options for treatment that are producing better, and increasingly long-lasting outcomes. Approved options include immunomodulatory drugs, proteasome inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies. More recently, immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell therapies and bispecific antibodies have been approved. There … Read more
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new kind of immunotherapy drug for adults and children with classical Hodgkin lymphoma who have relapsed after three or more prior lines of therapy. The approved drug, pembrolizumab (Keytruda), is part of a class of immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors that block the PD-1 protein, which is … Read more
Kidney cancer is one of several cancers that has responded well to immunotherapy drugs, which can free the immune system from restraints that cancer cells can impose on it. The drug nivolumab (Opdivo), for example, which was recently approved, can extend survival in patients with metastatic kidney cancer after other drugs have failed. But can … Read more
A fire truck pulls into the truck bay and idles for a minute or two as a firefighter attaches tubing to filter the exhaust out of the station. The firefighter’s face may be close to the exhaust for 30 seconds while the tubing is attached. It’s a routine task, one that’s performed by the same … Read more
Because of their increased susceptibility to the toxicities of chemotherapy, should ALL patients with Down syndrome receive modified treatment to minimize this risk? Or should they be given the same treatment as other children with ALL, to minimize the chance for relapse?
Cancer occurs worldwide, and commonly – in 2012, there were an estimated 14.1 million new cancer cases globally, according to the World Cancer Research Fund. But not all cancers are created equally. Certain countries have higher rates of some cancers and lower of others, depending on a number of factors, including health care access, environment, … Read more
Following surgery and/or radiation for early stage breast cancer, chemotherapy is sometimes given to eliminate remaining cancer cells that could cause trouble later. Traditionally, women have been more likely to undergo follow-up chemotherapy if clinical and pathological factors suggested a significant risk of recurrence, such as a larger tumor, higher stage and pathological grade of … Read more
A diagnosis of cancer always comes as a shock, and the patient naturally asks the physician, why did this happen? Is it something I did or didn’t do, or did I inherit it, or were chemicals in the environment to blame? “Why patients develop cancers is not well known,” explains Irene Ghobrial, MD, of Dana-Farber. … Read more
Clinical trials are research studies that explore whether new treatments, diagnostic techniques, or disease-prevention strategies are safe and effective in patients. They may be an option when patients no longer benefit from standard therapies. They may also offer an alternative to standard therapies, particularly if the agent being tested is likely to be more effective … Read more
This post originally appeared on Cancer Research Catalyst, the official blog of the American Association for Cancer Research. It was originally published Jan. 10, 2017. By Srivani Ravoori, PhD As we step into 2017, a big question looming in the minds of all stakeholders in the cancer research arena is: What is the future of … Read more
“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” may be a valid philosophy in general, but not in dealing with the molecular machinery of cancer cells. There, the applicable motto might be might be, “If it’s broke, keep it that way.” That’s the approach taken by a class of targeted drugs known as PARP inhibitors, which … Read more