A long-sought contractual agreement with the Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan (BMCHP) is providing thousands of Medicaid (MassHealth) patients in Massachusetts with easier access to Dana-Farber’s specialty cancer care, while also expanding its mission to serve historically neglected, excluded, and disinvested communities and populations. Under the agreement, which was finalized in December 2020, Dana-Farber and … Read more
Brian Regan knows how overwhelming it can be to hear the words “you have cancer” as a teenager. That is why, nearly a decade after his own diagnosis, he feels compelled to help young patients and families currently grappling with the physical and emotional challenges of treatment. Regan, 27, is a member of the Pediatric … Read more
Investigators led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Kimberly Stegmaier, MD, have discovered that knocking out a protein regulator in Ewing sarcoma cells causes the tumor cells to die from an overdose of a cancer-promoting protein. The regulator, a protein known as TRIM8, is critical to the survival of Ewing sarcoma cells because it controls the levels … Read more
Rosemary Iwakura, 17, was experiencing strange symptoms before her acute lymphoblastic leukemia diagnosis (ALL) almost two years ago. She was unable to focus on her schoolwork or activities and fainted on several occasions at school and at home. “I thought; ‘People faint for many reasons,’” she recalls. “We weren’t sure if we were supposed to … Read more
Adding the BCL-2 inhibitor drug venetoclax to a combination chemotherapy regimen significantly improved outcomes in Richter’s syndrome, a rare but deadly complication that develops in some patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to a study led by Dana-Farber investigators. The addition of the targeted drug venetoclax to a chemo regimen called R-EPOCH yielded the … Read more
When a clinical trial showed the targeted drug ibrutinib to be highly effective in patients with a form of lymphoma called Waldenström macroglobulinemia, the results were so compelling that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug for all patients with the disease, even though the trial included only patients previously treated with other … Read more
Nytasha Jette was panicked when her two-month-old son, Elyahs Jones, was found to have an extraordinarily high white blood cell count — over 300,000 — during a regular check-up. The family physician noted that Jones had very pale hands and was worried that the child wasn’t getting proper blood flow. Jette rushed Jones to Dana-Farber/Boston … Read more
Dana-Farber scientists have found that a generic anti-microbial drug can block a key molecular driver of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells, and when tested in a small clinical trial of advanced CLL patients who had relapsed, the drug slowed disease progression in half of them. The drug, pyrimethamine, achieved stable disease in eight of the … Read more
Ureteral cancer is a type of cancer that grows in the ureter, or the two thin tubes that connect the kidneys to the bladder. It is uncommon compared with other cancers. What are the ureters? Kidneys make urine by filtering waste and extra water from blood. The urine travels from the kidneys to the bladder … Read more
To see Tara Daniels today, with a corporate job in marketing and about to close on a house, you’d never know what she’s been through, how thrilled she is to be alive. This month marks five years since she received a high-risk bone marrow transplant for a life-threatening blood cancer. Tara woke up feeling sick … Read more
Tom McLaughlin would have rather spent Thanksgiving week at home with his extended family, but under the circumstances the 76-year-old grandfather said he was very happy where he was — and still had much to be thankful for. On November 23, McLaughlin became the 100th patient to receive an outpatient stem cell transplant at Dana-Farber … Read more
Dana-Farber lymphoma patient John Babchak has a unique perspective on his treatment journey. More than two decades ago, in 2004, his late husband Richard Walsh was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. For the next five years, Babchak stepped into the role of caregiver, spending as much time with Richard as he could. “The most valuable thing … Read more
The immune cells known as natural killer (NK) cells are part of the body’s first line of defense against cancer. Many efforts are underway to harness NK cells as a form of cancer immunotherapy, but a critical question in the field remains: Why do some tumors tend to be sensitive to NK cells’ attacks while … Read more
When breast cancer spreads, or metastasizes, it’s more likely to travel to some parts of the body than others. The most common sites of metastasis include the bones, brain, liver, or lungs. It’s rare for patients with early-stage breast cancer, which has not spread beyond the breast or adjacent lymph nodes, to develop a brain … Read more
No one enjoys a gallbladder attack, but Karen Howley LaCamera is glad hers came when it did. Had sharp abdominal pains not sent her to the emergency room in February 2018, it may have been much longer before doctors discovered another major problem silently growing inside her: stage III ovarian cancer. “I think about that … Read more
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
A compound that sparks an immune system attack on cancer while also lowering tumor cells’ defenses against such an attack is showing promise in its first clinical trial in patients with advanced or metastatic cancers. One of those with the best result is a former U.S. Marine and Afghanistan war veteran, Josh Mahoney. Mahoney, of … Read more
It took Abbey Bergman a while to transform her longtime passion into a profession — but once she did, it was instrumental in helping her through her greatest challenge. Bergman, a fitness instructor who thrives on pushing clients to be their best, focused that same approach inward after being diagnosed with stage IV head and … Read more
Finding a lump in the groin can be frightening, but it is rare for a lump under the skin to indicate cancer. Regardless, any changes in your body should be reported to a medical professional, who can help you determine the best course of action. Where exactly is the groin? The groin makes up the … Read more
Like the NASA Apollo mission itself, research projects funded by the Cancer MoonshotSM initiative have lofty ambitions. And like the effort to land an American on the moon, the technical and logistical work that went into these projects has often been obscured by the magnitude of their goals. A quartet of recent papers in the … Read more