Bar Harbor, Maine — Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Cambridge, Mass., in collaboration with Jackson Laboratory scientists, have identified a regulatory defect that drives lupus.
Correcting the defect “may represent an effective t…
BOSTON — People treated for cancer when they were children have a higher-than-average risk of gastrointestinal problems — some mild, some quite severe — in the years following treatment, according to a study to be presented at the 42nd Cong…
BOSTON — — Raising the survival rate of children with sarcoma in low-income countries will require steps to diagnose the disease sooner, train cancer pathologists, expand radiation therapy services, create multi-specialty teams to review each cas…
BOSTON — Researchers from Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC) have found that as many as 50 percent of young girls treated for germ-cell ovarian tumors might safely be spared chemotherapy using a “watch and wait” strategy to d…
BOSTON–Patients with colon cancer who used multivitamins during and after being treated with post-surgical chemotherapy did not reduce the risk of the cancer returning or their dying from it, according to researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Ins…
In a discovery sparked by a routine check-up of a young cancer survivor, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital Boston have identified a gene responsible for a childhood form of the kidney tumor papillary renal cell carcinoma (PRCC).
Building on earlier studies that have shown that common painkillers known as NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) can reduce the risk of colon cancer in healthy people, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a mechanism by which NSAIDs inhibit the development of colon cancer. Compared with normal cells, colorectal cancer cells have abnormally high levels of an immune system protein, IL-6. David Frank, MD, PhD, and his Dana-Farber colleagues have discovered that IL-6 triggers malignant growth by activating a protein called STAT1, which transmits signals that prevent the normal scheduled death of cells in the colon.
The benefit of some cancer vaccines may be boosted by treating patients with an antibody that blocks a key protein on immune system T cells, according to a small, preliminary study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The study tested the effect of a single injection of the antibody MDX-CTLA4 in nine patients who had previously been treated with cancer vaccines for either metastatic melanoma or metastatic ovarian cancer. The result, in every patient who had received a particular kind of vaccine, was widespread death of cancer cells and an increase in the number of immune system cells within the tumors ? evidence of a potent immune system attack.
In the process of figuring out why an anti-cancer drug is effective in treating patients with a rare blood disorder known as hypereosinophilic syndrome, or HES, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have shown that the condition may in fact be a form of cancer.
A relatively brief screening test can give caregivers a good indication of which cancer survivors are emotionally distressed and may benefit from further psychological evaluation, according to new research by a team of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators. In a study in the March 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the researchers found that childhood cancer survivors whose screening scores indicated they were dissatisfied with their physical appearance, were in poor physical health, or had been treated with head radiation had an increased risk of experiencing psychological distress.