More than 600,000 people in the United States are living with a primary brain tumor — one that begins and stays in the brain — and over 60,000 adults and children will be diagnosed with a brain tumor this year. In recognition of May as Brain Tumor Awareness Month, we asked David Reardon, MD, clinical … Read more
By James Bond “How long will I live?” I asked my oncologist in Ohio in 1992, when I was 44 and diagnosed with multiple myeloma. “Three years,” he answered. Instead, I enjoyed 10 more years of active living. Then my disease began to overtake me; my kidneys were failing, I was unable to eat solid … Read more
The Encyclopedia Britannica may have published its last print edition, but a group of Dana-Farber scientists and their colleagues recently produced one of the first encyclopedias to help researchers determine which subtypes of cancer are likely to respond to current drugs. The freely available, online encyclopedia lists hundreds of cancer subtypes – each with a … Read more
When it comes to finding better drugs for cancer, Dana-Farber oncologist Dr. David Frank is not a patient man. While new cancer science promises to bring novel, improved therapies to the bedside, it can take many years — and Frank isn’t willing to wait. “We need to get new treatments to patients as soon as … Read more
Activated by sunlight and present in some foods and supplements, vitamin D has been associated with healthy bones and reducing the risk of diabetes and cancer. But a new study says that the recommended dose of vitamin D needed to reap these health benefits remains unclear. To help shed some light on the topic, we … Read more
As she hopped off the bleachers onto the grass after a graduation ceremony, Elizabeth Zarrella felt an unfamiliar pain in her back. A visit to the emergency room a week later revealed the source of the pain and the reason for its severity: her vertebrae were so brittle that two of them had been compressed … Read more
Lynch syndrome is an inherited condition that increases an individual’s risk for certain types of cancer. It’s caused by a mutation in any of five specific genes: MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, PMS2, and EPCAM. People born with a mutation in one or more of these genes have a significantly increased risk of developing colorectal or uterine cancer and a somewhat … Read more
When Meghan MacDonald visited her primary care provider in the fall of 2022 to get a lump in her breast examined, they confirmed her suspicion that it was just an inflamed cyst. Relieved, MacDonald began a course of antibiotics, but when the lump didn’t go away, her doctor ordered a mammogram, and when the results … Read more
Over the past 30 years, outcomes have improved dramatically for women with breast cancer. There are many new treatments, including hormone therapies and CDK4/6 inhibitors. In contrast, there has been no improvement in the outcomes for men with breast cancer. And current guidelines don’t support the use of newer therapies in men. “If we do … Read more
As a cast member on the television series “America’s Test Kitchen,” and host of its companion podcast “The Walk-In,” Elle Simone Scott delights in sharing her expertise and recipes. The Boston-based celebrity chef and food stylist is also a role model, as founder and president of SheChef, Inc., a professional networking organization for fellow women … Read more
Nancy Arsenault was taking a lunch break from driving her elementary school bus route in her hometown of Stow, Massachusetts, when she began to experience double vision. She had been first diagnosed with pre-invasive breast cancer in 2006, which recurred in 2011. In 2019, she developed an invasive breast cancer in her chest wall and … Read more
To understand the genesis of the bone marrow transplant field, go back to the detonation, in 1945, of the first nuclear weapons and the shadow of the Atomic Age. The search for ways to rescue the blood-forming and immune systems of individuals exposed to high doses of radiation provided the impetus for donor bone marrow … Read more
Scientists are stepping up efforts to deploy natural killer (NK) cells — the body’s first responders against infected and malignant cells — to combat cancer. Treatment using NK cells from healthy donors has shown promise, but currently successes have been limited and the cells lack staying power in the body. While some researchers are working … Read more
Every school day, when Mike James walks into work at Boston Adult Technical Academy (BATA), he sees an inspiring sign painted by the students: Together, We Can. That philosophy lifted James up after he was diagnosed with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer in August 2019. James leaned on his support network of coworkers, his family, … Read more
First Cinthia Roman Manrique learned she had acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Then the 8-year-old Peru native was uprooted from her school, family, and friends when she flew with her mother in early 2017 to the United States — where chances of a cure for her high-risk cancer were better. In the U.S., Cinthia’s challenges continued … 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
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
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
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