What is a Living Drug?
“Living” drugs consist of fully functional cells that have been selected and often modified to treat specific diseases, such as cancer. CAR T-cell therapy and therapeutic vaccines fall into this category.
Search Results for: immunotherapy
CDK4/6 Inhibitors: How Do They Stop Breast Cancer Growth?
So far, CDK4/6 inhibitors have been shown to be most effective in treating advanced estrogen-receptor positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.
Genetic Testing for Breast Cancer: What You Should Know
Many factors contribute to increased breast cancer risk for some women — including certain inherited genes. About 5 to 10 percent of breast cancer cases are thought to be hereditary, meaning that they are the direct result of gene mutations passed on from a parent. Genes are individual units of inheritance made of DNA. There … Read more
Living with Ovarian Cancer as a Chronic Disease, and Celebrating Milestones
Whenever Joan Janssen meets fellow ovarian cancer patients, she shares words of wisdom that she’s gained from seven years of living with the disease. “This is a recurring disease; don’t be stunned if it comes back,” she tells them. “You fought it the first time. You can do it even better the next time.” Janssen … Read more
New Interventions Address Sexual Health after Ovarian Cancer Treatment
Ovarian cancer often goes undetected before it reaches more invasive stages, but there is one aspect of the disease that frequently remains ignored even after diagnosis: Its impact upon a patient’s sexual health and function. Now, as research and treatment advances are allowing more women to live longer and healthier with ovarian cancer, Dana-Farber is … Read more
What is the Relationship Between Tea and Cancer Prevention?
Drinking tea has been a practice around the world since ancient times, and often has been seen as a way of promoting good health. Whether tea – either the green or black varieties – can reduce the risk of cancer is a question that has been studied, but hasn’t yielded a definite answer. Made from … Read more
Inoperable Cancer: What Does it Mean?
A cancer can be inoperable for a variety of reasons. “Liquid cancers,” such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, are considered inoperable by nature, because they involve cells or tissues that are dispersed throughout the body. Leukemia and multiple myeloma, for example, originate in abnormal cells of the bone marrow, the spongy material within the … Read more
When Research Into One Cancer Sheds Light on Another: A Scientist’s Story
Whenever an advance against cancer is reported, it’s easy to imagine that it came about in an orderly and straightforward manner.
What is CRISPR and How Can It Help Cancer Research?
CRISPR, a powerful new tool for editing the DNA instruction manual in animals and humans, is proving a boon to cancer research. Scientists say CRISPR has dramatically accelerated the process of making animal models of cancer and is speeding the search for new molecular targets for cancer drugs. The technique is also being used in … Read more
Treating Cancer by Location or Genetic Markers: Which is Better?
In the past, treating cancers involved classifying them primarily by the organ or tissue where they arose – like the skin, the lungs, the breast, or the colon. Today, it’s often possible to identify the genes and proteins responsible for a tumor’s growth, and, in some cases, to offer a drug treatment that specifically targets … Read more
Psychosocial Care Helps Amy through Cancer’s Mental Side
Cancer can feel like a slog — not just a physical one, but an emotional one, too. That’s how 56-year-old business owner Amy Macdonald describes the past year and a half living with metastatic melanoma. “The biggest changes in my life are the consequences of the treatment – fatigue, body aches, brain fog, and mental … Read more
Cancer Treatment: A Look at How It Has Evolved in 70 Years
In 1947, when Dana-Farber Cancer Institute founder Sidney Farber, MD, set out to find a drug treatment for childhood leukemia, cancer treatment took two forms – surgery to cut out cancerous masses, and radiation therapy to burn them out. Cancers that couldn’t be removed or irradiated – either because of their position in the body, because … Read more
CAR T-Cell Therapy for Lymphoma: What You Need to Know
CAR T-cell therapy, like all forms of cancer immunotherapy, seeks to sharpen and strengthen the immune system’s inherent cancer-fighting powers. It involves treating patients with modified versions of their own immune system T cells — white blood cells that help protect the body from disease. CAR T-cell therapy has been approved by the U.S. Food … Read more
Living Well with Metastatic Breast Cancer
In early 2015, Kim Delling had put her 2009 bout with breast cancer behind her. Then, at a routine checkup, her doctor ordered an additional test. “I knew something was up,” recalls Delling, a 50-year-old real estate agent in Wilmington, Mass. The cancer had come back. It had spread to her lungs, liver, and lymph nodes and … Read more
FDA Approves CAR T-Cell Therapy for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
A drug called Axicabtagene ciloleucel (KTE-C19) has become the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy approved to treat a form of cancer in adults, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today. The decision means the drug, known as Yescarta, can now be used for some adults with refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The FDA ruling in … Read more
Human Touch Surgeries, New Therapies Brighten the Picture in Endometrial Cancer
Although she had been fully prepped on what to expect, Barbara Losordo was a bit surprised at the ease and speed of her recovery from surgery for endometrial cancer. Discharged from the hospital the same day she had undergone the procedure, she needed no pain medication afterward. Within a week, she was driving. Within a month, … Read more
What’s New in Treatment for Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)?
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a type of leukemia in which a group of white blood cells, called lymphocytes, are affected. Leukemia is the most common form of cancer in children, and about 80 percent of children with leukemia have acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy was approved in August 2017 for the … Read more
Testing a New Option in Ovarian Cancer Prevention
For women who inherit a breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility gene like mutant BRCA-1 or BRCA-2, the risk of ovarian and tubal cancers begins to rise significantly at age 40 to 45. Women at this age — and younger — are often advised to have their ovaries and tubes removed as a risk-reducing strategy for … Read more
Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: What’s New in Treatment? [Webchat]
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is one of the two major subtypes of lymphoma, and about 72,000 people will be diagnosed with this cancer by the end of 2017, according to the American Cancer Society. There are more than 50 types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma – including B-cell and T-cell lymphomas, as well as fast-growing and slow-growing lymphomas. There … Read more
Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Symptoms and Signs
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) refers to cancer of lymphocytes, which are type of white blood cell and part of the immune system. NHL can occur at any age and is often marked by symptoms including enlarged lymph nodes, fever, and weight loss. It is one of the most common cancers in the United States, accounting for about … Read more