In December 2013, Michelle Leonard wasn’t too concerned when she felt a pain in her right chest. “I kind of thought, ‘Well at least it’s the right side, not a big deal,’” she says. But then she developed a fever and decided to go to her primary care physician. Her nurse practitioner sent her for … Read more
A relatively small proportion of breast cancers are caused by alterations in inherited genes that sharply increase the lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. One of these genes has recently been receiving new attention: PALB2, a potent breast cancer susceptibility gene related to the better-known BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Someone who inherits a PALB2 mutation faces … Read more
Although stomach cancer is a rare disease, African Americans have a higher risk of developing it than white Americans do. Incidence rates of stomach cancer are 1.8 times higher in non-Hispanic Black men and 2.2 times higher in non-Hispanic Black women than in white men and women, respectively, according to the American Cancer Society. (These … Read more
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the second most common leukemia diagnosed in children. It is hard to treat and can be fatal in some cases. While there have been some recent successes with genetically targeted therapies for adults, AML has different genetic features in children, and care has been slow to advance. “The state of care … Read more
Treatment for breast cancer is generally based on the type of breast cancer, its stage, and other factors. Increasingly, care teams are devising treatment plans by looking at the molecular subtype of each breast cancer. The various subtypes of breast cancer behave and grow in different ways, and can be divided based on different genes … Read more
Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare, very aggressive form of breast cancer that occurs when cancer cells block the flow of lymph in the skin of the breast. This causes the breast to swell and become red or purplish, often in a short period of time such as a few weeks. IBC accounts for … Read more
For decades, retinoic acid has been a key part of the arsenal against the childhood cancer neuroblastoma. For just as long, scientists have wondered exactly how it works. The answer, Dana-Farber researchers have found, is by reprogramming the activity of two crucial pairs of genes with such precision that the drug almost seems to have … Read more
Hispanic Americans are substantially more likely to develop liver cancer than non-Hispanic whites are. The disparities are more pronounced among women than men: According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hispanic women had more than twice the rate of liver cancer incidence than white women between 2011 and 2015, the most recent … Read more
What is the BRCA gene? BRCA1 and BRCA2 play a big role in preventing cancer. They belong to a class of genes called tumor suppressors, which ensure that breast, ovarian, and other types of cells don’t grow or divide too rapidly or uncontrollably. BRCA testing checks for mutations in either gene, and can help people decide … Read more
As head of marketing for a leading international news agency, Kelly Ives routinely worked with journalists across the globe. When it came to chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), however, it was her own reporting skills that led Ives to a life-changing treatment. Ives was a 37-year-old mom with a career and three young children, including an … Read more
Although stem cell transplantation is the only current therapy with the potential to cure myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), it is rarely used as an initial treatment for older patients because it hasn’t been proven superior to other therapies. New research by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators stands to overturn that practice. In a clinical trial involving 384 … Read more
Researchers at Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have created a novel Molecular Oncology Almanac that combines an algorithm, or computational method, for interpreting genomic alterations in a patient’s tumor, along with a knowledge base of molecular changes reported to be associated with tumor behavior. They say that the components of this … Read more
Studies in large populations have shown that people who have a near relative with a form of lymphoma or chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have an increased risk of developing these diseases themselves. Both lymphoma and CLL are relatively uncommon: the average person’s lifetime risk of developing CLL, for example, is 0.57%, according to the American … Read more
New research has yielded the strongest evidence yet that irisin, a hormone discovered by Dana-Farber’s Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, that is produced in the body by muscular exercise, can by itself improve cognitive functions and potentially reverse some of the memory-destroying effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Reporting in the journal Nature Metabolism, Spiegelman and co-authors from Massachusetts … Read more
Each time the UPS truck makes its way up Becky Baker’s driveway in Lyons, New York, her 3-year-old grandson, Cal, is certain there’s a package for him. Today, the delivery is in fact for Cal — but not exactly the drivable mini Jeep he was hoping for. “Those are your diapers, buddy,” his grandmother says, … Read more
Cancers originating in the bone, called primary bone cancers, are rare and account for less than 1% of all cancers. There are numerous types of primary bone cancers, and in most cases, the cause isn’t known. Primary bone tumors can have changes in the DNA of the cancer cells, but those DNA changes are acquired … Read more
The shock of a new cancer diagnosis was still settling in for Isabel Nordby when she and her parents made a decision that could greatly impact the teenager’s future — if and when the time is right. Before starting her chemotherapy protocol for Ewing sarcoma in April 2020, Isabel, then 15, had one of her … Read more
Thoughts of having a family may be the subject of an idle moment’s reverie for many young people. A cancer diagnosis can make them inescapable. Not all cancer treatments have an impact on fertility, but for those that do, patients who hope to have children in the future — or simply wish to leave open … Read more
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
Drugs that contain radioactive isotopes — forms of chemical elements that emit radiation — are known as radiopharmaceuticals. Radioisotopes have been used to treat cancer as far back as the 1940s, but the field has really taken off just in the past few years as researchers explore their potential in cancer. How are radiopharmaceuticals used … Read more