Implantable Device Helps Predict Drug Therapy Efficacy

Dana-Farber investigators recently launched a trial of a miniature device that can be implanted into ovarian tumors to deliver microdoses of different drugs, with the goal of rapidly measuring their effectiveness in killing cancer cells. The researchers hope the method could shorten the time needed to determine if a drug is helping a patient, and … Read more

Researchers Set Sights on New Ovarian Cancer Treatment Strategies

Despite breakthrough treatments for high-grade serous ovarian cancer, about 80 percent of patients relapse within two years, often resistant to treatment. The good news is that Dana-Farber scientists are pursuing multiple avenues of research that very well may improve outcomes. “A number of patients develop progressive disease at a later point, potentially indicating that a … Read more

Patient-Derived Ovarian Cancer ‘Organoids’ Aid Precision Oncology Research

The time may not be far off when the treatment for a person’s ovarian cancer can be tailored to their malignancy using drugs selected by testing on “organoids” — miniature 3-D clusters of cancer cells grown from a patient’s own tumor cells. Although ovarian organoid tests are not yet being used to guide treatment decisions, … Read more

Dana-Farber Patient Benefits From ‘Growing Toolbox of Treatments’

When Dana-Farber launched its new Center for BRCA and Related Genes in August 2020, it was with patients like Janice Dolnick in mind. Dolnick’s cancer journey had already been a long one before she came to Dana-Farber for a consult in 2018. Over the previous 21 years, she’d been through two rounds of breast cancer … Read more

Combination Therapy Working Well for Patient with Cervical Cancer in Clinical Trial

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic was sending entire states into lockdown, Jill Bailey learned that her metastatic cervical cancer was beginning to break free of the grip of chemotherapy. It was March 2020. Scans showed that Bailey’s metastatic tumors, which had shrunk in response to chemotherapy and another drug, were slowly starting to grow. A … Read more

Study Uncovers Potent Immunotherapy Approach to Ovarian Cancer Treatment

Immune therapies declare open season on cancer, rousing immune system cells to take up an attack on tumors. But which immune cells join the hunt, which sit it out, and what happens within immune cells that causes them to go on the offensive? Such questions are especially relevant when immunotherapies show only limited effectiveness against … Read more

TILs: What Are They and How Are They Used in Cancer Treatment?

What is TIL (tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte) therapy? Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte, or TIL, therapy uses a patient’s own immune system T cells to fight cancer. The therapy involves removing T cells from a piece of the patient’s tumor – where the T cells have congregated after being alerted to the cancer – growing them outside the body, then … Read more

Metastatic Uterine Cancer Patient Remains Optimistic With Help of Care Team

Stephanie Davis is a master adapter. When she was initially diagnosed with serous uterine cancer, she found a way to continue working around surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Today, she is still adapting — moving from one treatment plan to another as her cancer changes — and is in consultation with her care team to keep … Read more

Ovarian Cancer Clinical Trial Helps Grandmother Feel Stable During a Difficult Year

Carol Brown, 80, has been through quite a turbulent 2020. Her much-beloved pastimes, including playing violin in a senior orchestra, book groups, and weekly church services, are now virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Boston-area resident had to cancel a March trip to visit family out west, and she spent the summer packing up … Read more

Young Investigators Use Patient Samples for Cancer Studies

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

Basic Science Discovery Leads to Clinical Trial for Patients with Chemotherapy-Resistant Form of Ovarian Cancer

Dana-Farber scientists recently uncovered a potential vulnerability in a form of ovarian cancer notoriously resistant to chemotherapy. Now they’ve opened a clinical trial involving a drug that targets that susceptibility in patients with the disease. The impetus for their research is a type of ovarian cancer with excess copies of the cyclinE1 gene (abbreviated CCNE1). … Read more

Scientists Identify Genes Tied to Increased Risk of Ovarian Cancer

Medically reviewed by Alexander Gusev, PhD A team of Dana-Farber scientists and their associates has identified 34 genes associated with an increased risk of developing earliest-stage ovarian cancer. The findings, published in the journal Nature Genetics, will both help identify women who have the highest risk of developing ovarian cancer and pave the way for identifying … Read more

Gynecologic Cancer Screening: What You Need to Know

Medically reviewed by Kevin Elias, MD Today, cervical cancer is the only type of gynecologic cancer for which there is a routine screening test. The lack of such tests for endometrial and ovarian cancer — the most common gynecologic cancers — makes it especially important that women and their doctors be attuned to the symptoms … Read more

With precision cancer medicine, a success against endometrial cancer

In the annals of patients who have benefited from Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s (BWH) genomic sequencing program Profile, few involve a turnabout as dramatic as one recently reported in Gynecologic Oncology. Authored by nearly a dozen Dana-Farber and BWH faculty, the paper recounts the medical history of a 49-year-old Nebraska woman first diagnosed … Read more

Tips for Recovery After Gynecologic Surgery

Surgery is an essential component in the management of patients with gynecologic cancers. Surgical procedures may be utilized to initially diagnose cancers of the uterus, cervix, ovary, vulva and vagina. In addition, many gynecologic cancers are primarily treated (and often cured) with surgery alone. Nearly all gynecologic surgeries fall into either one of two categories: … Read more

How is Endometriosis Different from Endometrial Cancer?

Endometriosis is a non-cancerous disorder that occurs when tissue lining the inside of the uterus, known as the endometrium, appears in other parts of the body. It usually is found in the lower abdomen or pelvis but can appear in virtually any organ or tissue. Endometrial cancer, by contrast, occurs when cells in the endometrium … Read more

PARP Inhibitor Drugs May Now be Standard Part of Follow-up Therapy for Some Ovarian Cancer Patients

On the strength of the results of a major international clinical trial, there is now a new standard of care for patients with an advanced form of ovarian cancer who have responded to initial chemotherapy. The trial, dubbed SOLO-1, found that these patients – newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer that carries a mutation in the … Read more