After Lacey Martin’s leukemia didn’t respond to initial rounds of chemotherapy and after she spent 10 weeks hospitalized for a stem cell transplant, the 11-year-old New Hampshire girl went home March 2 with an external line for medications that her mother would have to flush and clean twice a day. Lacey’s immune system and infection-fighting … Read more
Combination therapy, the use of more than one type of therapy in treating a patient, is a hallmark of cancer treatment. The complexity of the disease – its tendency to spread beyond its original site and become resistant to certain drugs, and its genetic diversity – underscores the need for a variety of approaches to … Read more
A reduced-intensity stem cell transplant, also known as a ‘mini’ transplant, is a modified form of a procedure that replaces a patient’s blood-forming stem cells with those of a compatible donor. Mini-transplant patients receive lower doses of chemotherapy than are used in a full-intensity, or myeloablative, transplant, and, in general, receive no radiation therapy. The … Read more
Neoadjuvant therapy is given to shrink a tumor in advance of the main treatment, which is usually surgery. It is sometimes called preoperative or induction therapy. The most common forms of neoadjuvant therapy are chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormone therapy. By shrinking tumors prior to removal, these treatments can make surgery easier for both the … Read more
What is the Whipple operation/procedure? Many pancreatic cancer patients are diagnosed after the cancer has spread beyond the pancreas, making surgery a risky treatment option. But for those patients whose cancer is localized, surgery may be used to remove the tumor and prevent further spread. When the tumor is confined to the head or neck of the pancreas, … Read more
Ed. note: Niraparib (Zejula) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 28, 2017, as a maintenance therapy for women with ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer. This post was originally published on Oct. 21, 2016. For women with relapsed ovarian cancer that responds to platinum-based chemotherapy, a drug that hampers … Read more
Radiation therapy is one of the pillars of breast cancer treatment and may be used at any stage of the disease. It is primarily used in one of two ways: to decrease the chance of the cancer recurring following surgery, or to palliate symptoms of metastatic disease. What is radiation therapy? Radiation consists of beams of … Read more
Cancer and its treatment can result in pain for some patients. While this can be difficult, there are many different ways to treat and manage pain with the help of your care team. “Each person is unique in their pain experiences, and management plans can be tailored to each patient,” says Dan Gorman, NP, a … Read more
Aromatase inhibitors are drugs given to patients with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer (HR+). They target the aromatase enzyme, which helps produce female hormones such as estrogen. Estrogen drives the growth of many HR+ tumors, and these drugs help control estrogen production, says Harold Burstein, MD, PhD, a breast cancer specialist in the Susan F. Smith Center … Read more
By Eric Winer, MD When a woman learns she has breast cancer, and she has cancer treatment available to her, it is only natural that she and her doctor would choose a powerful course of action. And in many cases, this approach makes sense. However, aggressive treatments often come with consequences. Bigger surgeries lead to … Read more
Early research has shown cannabis may be helpful for patients experiencing side effects from chemotherapy and other types of cancer treatment, such as nausea and vomiting. But there are also risk associated with using cannabis, and the persisting social stigma and legal questions surrounding its use complicate how it is approached in a clinical setting. … Read more
According to the American Cancer Society, more than 180,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, with African American men 60 percent more likely to develop the disease than other ethnic groups. Fortunately, the vast majority of prostate cancer diagnoses will be a slow-growing, highly treatable form of the disease. For many men diagnosed … Read more
Ovarian cancer is a complex disease. Cell types, stages, and genetics play an important role for patients and their doctors as they decide which direction to take. Fortunately, patients today have many treatment options and new advances on the horizon. Physician-scientists at the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers are leading the way in … Read more
When Emily Coughlin complained of a sore knee in May 2009, doctors initially suspected Lyme disease. After antibiotics failed to relieve the pain, the girl, who was just shy of her fourth birthday, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that begins in nerve cells outside the brain and usually affects children under 6. Though rare … Read more
Tumors can’t grow any larger than the size of a pinhead unless the body generates a network of new blood vessels to nourish them – a process known as angiogenesis. So using drugs called angiogenesis inhibitors to block this process is an ingenious strategy with many potential advantages over standard chemotherapy. Indeed, when the first … Read more
PARP inhibitors are a targeted therapy used to treat certain cancers, including breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and prostate cancer, particularly in patients with BRCA1/2 mutations or other mutations that affect DNA repair systems in cells. They block proteins called PARPs (or Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerases) that play an important role in the life of a cell. When … Read more
As researchers and clinicians in the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber continue studying the benefits of a two-drug combination in slowing progression of recurrent ovarian cancer, one patient is as a beacon of hope for her caregivers – and for others facing the disease. Betsy Brauser, treated with standard chemotherapy near … Read more
When Judy Rosenbaum was diagnosed with breast cancer, the thought of serious treatment and surgery, like a mastectomy, was frightening. Working with her doctors and care team, Judy found a “less is more” treatment approach and elected to have a lumpectomy rather than a mastectomy. “I was terrified of having surgery,” Rosenbaum says. “The only … Read more
Traditionally, the war on cancer has been waged from the outside in, with therapies such as surgery, radiation, and drugs entering the body from external sources. For more than 100 years, however, a notion has persisted that the most formidable tool against cancer may come from within: the immune system. The immune system is the … Read more
When facing a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, patients often have many questions about clinical trials: Is a clinical trial right for me? When is a good time to consider a clinical trial? What types of treatments might be available? While there may be many questions about the process, the decision to participate in a … Read more