Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have uncovered a new role for a key cancer protein, cyclin D1, a finding that could pave the way for more-effective radiation treatment of a variety of tumors.
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified an overactive network of growth-spurring genes that drive stem-like breast cancer cells enriched in triple-negative breast tumors, a typically aggressive cancer that is highly resistant to current therapies.
Rebecca Byrne was young, in love, and having a baby. It was everything she ever wanted. But then she found out she also had breast cancer. The mother-to-be was faced with the difficult decision of keeping her baby - or postponing her own life-saving treatment. (Video)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have developed a technique that can cause attack cells in cancer patients live longer in a patients' bloodstream, helping to increase survival times.
Dana-Farber scientists have discovered details of how cancer cells escape from tumor suppression mechanisms that normally prevent these damaged cells from multiplying. They also demonstrated a potential link between this cell proliferation control mechanism and the cognitive deficits caused by Down syndrome.
An innovative experimental treatment for boosting the effectiveness of stem-cell transplants with umbilical cord blood has a favorable safety profile in long-term animal studies, report Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Children’s Hospital Boston scientists.
Dana-Farber scientists have developed a laboratory model that mimics the process by which fallopian tube cells may morph into cancer cells that appear to have come from the ovaries, supporting the theory that high-grade serous ovarian cancer may originate from the fallopian tubes.
A section of the AIDS virus's protein envelope once considered an improbable target for a vaccine now appears to be one of the most promising, new research by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists indicates.
In the first time in more than a decade, the U-S Food and
Drug administration gave the okay to a new cancer drug that is giving hope to patients with advanced melanoma.
The disease is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. Until now, there were few treatment options for patients
once melanoma spread to other areas of the body.
Broad Institute and Dana-Farber scientists have unveiled the most comprehensive picture to date of the full genetic blueprint of multiple myeloma. The study yielded insights into the events that lead to this form of cancer and could influence the direction of research.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists report they have used hydroxychloroquine, a drug routinely prescribed for malaria and rheumatoid arthritis, to shrink or slow the growth of notoriously resistant pancreatic tumors in mice.
New research from the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) shows that newer, more expensive treatment options for prostate cancer were adopted rapidly and widely during 2002 – 2005 without proof of their cost-effectiveness.
The Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) has selected Donna L. Berry, PhD, RN, AOCN®, FAAN, director of the Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and Patient Care Services at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, to receive its 2011 Distinguished Researcher Award.
The number of cancer survivors in the U.S. increased to 11.7 million in 2007, according to the CDC and NCI. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute survivorship expert said this increase underscores the importance of care givers and policy makers focusing on issues unique to cancer survivors.
Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report that higher baseline levels of a novel inflammatory marker indicated increased risk of developing colorectal tumors and predicted who might benefit from taking aspirin or NSAIDs.
Dana-Farber has received a $5.6M grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Army Research Office to develop transient immunity against naturally occurring or engineered disease-causing pathogens. The goal: Develop a countermeasure to an unknown pathogen within 7 days of receiving it.
Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center has been awarded $11.7M in unclaimed funds from the Lupron class action settlement to launch a grant award program focused on prostate cancer research that emphasizes large-scale national collaborations and smaller-scale innovative pilot projects.
By tweaking a single gene, scientists have mimicked in sedentary mice the heart-strengthening effects of two weeks of endurance training, according to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center researchers.
In research to be presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston offer a new explanation of why chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) tends to recur in the lymph nodes and bone marrow after being cleared from the bloodstream by chemotherapy.
The past year has brought to light both the promise and the frustration of developing new drugs to treat melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. Early clinical tests of a candidate drug aimed at a crucial cancer-causing gene revealed impressive results in patients whose cancers resisted all currently available treatments. Unfortunately, those effects proved short-lived, as the tumors invariably returned a few months later. Now, a research team led by scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT has unearthed one of the key players behind such drug resistance.
Being diagnosed with cancer is tough enough, but many times cancer patients have to endure hours of chemotherapy to treat the disease. A new program at a cancer hospital in Boston may just be what the doctor ordered to help patients pass the time.
A new oral drug caused dramatic shrinkage of a patient's rare, aggressive form of soft-tissue cancer that was driven by an abnormally activated protein, report Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists in the Oct. 28 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Compared with adult cancer patients, parents of children with cancer were more likely to be dissatisfied with the informed consent process for participating in clinical trials, according to a study from Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center.
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 case, and other actions, according to an international study led by Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center researchers. The findings will be presented at the 42nd Congress of the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP) in Boston on Friday, Oct. 22.
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 determine if the follow-up treatment is needed.
Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Care is hosting the 42nd Congress of the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP). The largest pediatric oncology meeting in the world, SIOP is returning to the United States for the first time in 17 years.
In the quest to arrest the growth and spread of tumors, there have been many attempts to get cancer genes to ignore their internal instruction manual. In a new study, a team led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists has created the first molecule able to prevent cancer genes from “hearing” those instructions, stifling the cancer process at its root.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Belfer Institute of Applied Cancer Science and sanofi-aventis have entered into a collaboration and license option agreement to identify and validate novel oncology targets for further discovery and development by sanofi-aventis of novel therapeutics agents directed to such targets and related biomarkers.
Cancer patients who die in the hospital or an intensive care unit have worse quality of life at the end-of-life, compared to patients who die at home with hospice services, and their caregivers are at higher risk for developing psychiatric illnesses during bereavement, according to a study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Michael Douglas' recent diagnosis with stage 4 throat cancer has raised public awareness of head and neck cancer. On Thursday, Sept.16, at 5 pm ET, Dr. Robert Haddad, clinical director of the Head and Neck Oncology Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, will host a half-hour live Twitter chat about recent advances in head and neck cancers.
Going back to school can be a challenge for kids battling cancer. But health experts say it’s an important part of recovering from the disease. One program in Boston is
helping to make the transition from hospital to class an easier one for younger patients.
A therapy that multiplies the effect of a natural disease-fighting antibody has extended the lives of patients with metastatic melanoma in a large, international clinical trial. The study’s researchers will report their findings simultaneously at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago and in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A therapy that multiplies the effect of a natural disease-fighting antibody has extended the lives of patients with metastatic melanoma in a large, international clinical trial. The study’s researchers will report their findings simultaneously at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago and in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Advances in cancer care now mean that the majority of people diagnosed with cancer will survive the disease. An estimated 12 million Americans are cancer survivors. This number is expected to nearly double by 2030. More than six out of every 10 adults newly diagnosed with cancer will meet or pass the five year survival mark.
Today’s announcement that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Provengeâ, a new form of therapy for some prostate cancer patients, marks the beginning of an era in which patients’ own immune systems become part of the standard therapeutic arsenal against cancer, say Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators who led a study of the treatment’s effectiveness in patients.
Older women who have had breast cancer surgery have a greater risk of the cancer returning if they delay their post-surgical radiation treatment, report Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists.
A survey of parents who had a child die of cancer found 1 in 8 considered hastening their child’s death, a deliberation influenced by the amount of pain the child experienced during the last month of life, report Dana-Farber researchers. The findings underscore the importance of communicating with parents about pain management options.
A new survey has found that African-Americans are more likely than whites to hold mistaken and fatalistic beliefs about lung cancer, as well as being more reluctant to consult a doctor about possible symptoms of the disease, according to researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and their collaborators.
A list of story ideas for February from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. 1) Esophageal Cancer: The disease is the fastest growing cancer in the U.S.; 2) Male Breast Cancer: Many men don’t think they can get this form of the disease; 3) Cord Blood Banking: Can a baby save a life?
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have signed a license agreement with Genentech, a wholly owned member of the Roche group, and Roche, that grants the companies exclusive rights to manufacture, develop and market human monoclonal antibodies to treat and protect against group 1 influenza viruses.
Metastatic prostate cancer patients who received a vaccine of harmless poxviruses engineered to spur an immune system attack on prostate tumor cells lived substantially longer than patients who received a placebo vaccine, report researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and affiliated organizations.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have discovered a gene activity signature that predicts a high risk of cancer recurrence in certain breast tumors that have been treated with commonly used chemotherapy drugs. The findings could lead to a genetic test that directs the best initial treatment.
Even when their tumors are shrinking in response to therapy, some non-small cell lung cancer patients have a scattering of cancer cells that are undeterred by the drug, causing the tumor to resume its growth, report Dana-Farber and Mass. General researchers. Identifying such patients and treating them with a combination of drugs from the very start of therapy can produce longer remissions.
Dana-Farber scientists have discovered a compound capable of treating non-small cell lung cancers that have grown resistant to Iressa(R) and Tarceva(R). The compound (WZ4002) acts against an EGFR kinase that carries a specific structural defect.
In a new study of terminally ill cancer patients, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found support of patients’ spiritual needs by the medical team is associated with greater use of hospice, less aggressive care, and greater quality of life near death.
Men who have been treated for colorectal cancer can reduce their risk of dying from the disease by engaging in regular exercise, according to a new study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
A new antibody-drug compound shrank or halted the growth of metastatic breast tumors in almost half of a group of patients whose HER2-positive cancer had become resistant to standard therapies, according to early data from a trial led by a Dana-Farber researcher.