CAR T-cell therapy is a form of immunotherapy in which patients’ T cells are modified to become better at tracking down and destroying tumor cells. CAR T cells are made by extracting thousands of a patient’s T cells, sending them to a lab where they’re outfitted with genes and proteins that improve their cancer-fighting prowess, … Read more
Elizabeth Larcom has six children, but it’s the youngest that she calls her “miracle baby” – and with good reason. In August 1997, the Army moved the Larcom family to Alaska with five kids under 12 and mom Elizabeth pregnant with the sixth. Soon after, husband and dad, Chuck, left for Army training in Louisiana. … 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
For much of his 17 years, Spencer Riley has lived to play basketball. This winter, his favorite sport helped the teenager get back to life. Riley was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2016 and treated at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center that summer. He underwent an intensive three-month treatment cycle: one week of … Read more
Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma are the two main types of lymphoma, a cancer that affects the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system produces and transports white blood cells to fight infection. While they have many characteristics in common, there are some significant differences between Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, including the age groups they affect, how they … Read more
Although lymphoma diagnoses are often categorized as either Hodgkin lymphoma or non-Hodgkin lymphoma, there are many subtypes of each disease, with more than 50 subtypes of non-Hodgkin lymphoma alone. Most forms of the more than 70,000 new cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosed in the U.S. each year can be broken up into two main subtypes: … Read more