There has been much excitement in recent years around new drugs that exploit the power of the body’s immune system to fight cancer. In some patients, even with advanced cancers, these immunotherapy treatments have slowed or halted the disease after standard treatments no longer worked, with remissions lasting several years and patients experiencing less severe … Read more
As a pediatric dentist, Jay Schwab had a clear-cut enemy: dental disease in children and adolescents, and the apprehensions they faced in the dental environment. Cavities could neither hide from his drill nor fool his X-ray machine, and plaque could easily be scraped away. Generations of patients went away smiling and in good dental health. … Read more
Studies show that men are often less likely than women to keep up with regular doctor’s visits, or be honest about their symptoms, which may contribute to worse health outcomes. Learn More: Make an Appointment at Dana-Farber What is Genetic Testing? Being vigilant about health care screenings is one of the best things you can … Read more
Both chemotherapy and antibody agents are used in the treatment of cancer. In its broadest definition, cancer chemotherapy refers to any drug that destroys cancer cells or slows their growth and reproduction. As the “chemo” in their name suggests, however, true chemotherapy agents consist of chemicals that kill fast-growing cancer cells while generally sparing slower-growing … 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
Skin cancer is very common: One in five Americans will develop the disease at some point in their lifetime. Usually, it is caused by overexposure to the sun and harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays, such as those in tanning beds. Melanoma, the least common but most dangerous form of skin cancer, typically begins in a mole … 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
By Ronni Gordon When my year of isolation ended after a stem cell transplant at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center in 2003, I looked for a blood cancer support group near my home in western Massachusetts. I found support groups for just about everyone except patients like me with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and other … 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
While not all cancers can be prevented, there are a number of strategies and techniques to help reduce cancer risk, even for those with inherited cancer genes. It’s important to start implementing healthful habits early in life, and as a parent, to educate kids about the importance of cancer prevention. However, it can be difficult … 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
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
At first, early intervention specialists told Christi Powers that her young son’s gross motor delays and poor balance were likely the result of weak muscle tone, but when Danny developed severe headaches at age 4, she took him to the emergency room. Soon the suburban Boston boy was diagnosed with a low-grade glioma, the most … Read more
Patients with pancreatic cancer often ask Dana-Farber’s Brian Wolpin, MD, MPH, about immunotherapy, the rising star of cancer treatment that’s making impressive gains against many types of malignancies. Immunotherapy drugs, which mobilize the patient’s immune defenses to recognize and attack tumor cells, have worked against lethal cancers such as melanoma and some lung cancers – … Read more
By Samantha Lozier I never truly realized how complicated cancer could be until I had to face it head on. Part of what makes it so complex, I’ve found, is that illness or not, we still have that inner “gremlin” inside all of us that tells us to care what others think and behave as … Read more
While some may wonder, cancer is not contagious; a healthy person cannot catch cancer from a person who has the disease, nor can it be spread by close contact with a cancer patient. Cancer cells are far different from infectious agents such as bacteria and viruses. A cancer cell is essentially a normal cell whose … Read more
The immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is the first therapy of any kind to improve survival in patients whose metastatic bladder cancer worsened after treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy. Keytruda proved so much better than chemotherapy in this “second-line” use that an international clinical trial was halted when the advantage became apparent. “This is very good news; … Read more
Keeping up with progress in the field of cancer immunotherapy requires paying close attention. The number of approved drugs that help the body’s immune system fight cancer continues to grow, as does the list of different cancers in which immunotherapy is proving effective – in some cases yielding dramatically longer-lasting benefits than standard chemotherapy. A … Read more
Cancer is most dangerous when it has spread, or metastasized, from its original site in the body. A tumor that began as an isolated mass – often treatable by surgery and/or radiation therapy – can become a dispersed, much more difficult to treat, malignancy. For cancer to spread, several steps must occur. As a result … 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