Latest Clinical & Research News
Specialty: Oncology
In the summer of 2019, Paul Pezzote, 67, learned he had Stage 4 cancer. Pezzote, who has Parkinson’s disease, had undergone treatments in 2010 at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC). However, the cancer had returned and spread.
Appendiceal cancers are rare, with an estimated 1,500 people diagnosed per year in the United States. The rarity of these cancers and their diverse manifestations can make accurate diagnosis challenging.
A recent study out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital advises that older cancer patients receive routine assessments of their ability to conduct certain daily living activities to identify those who need supportive intervention. The study, led by Clark DuMontier, MD, geriatrician and research fellow in Brigham and Women’s Division of Aging, found a correlation between patients’ ability to live independently and their odds of being hospitalized or dying.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors have transformed the management of patients with advanced kidney cancer. However, these therapies only work for a subset of patients with advanced disease and can be associated with substantial side effects. As a result, researchers are focused on new therapeutic combinations to boost the effectiveness of current immune therapies in renal cancer, including in patient populations with early-stage disease that is likely to recur.
Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest forms of women’s cancer, with a five-year survival rate of 47.4 percent. The standard of care for first-line treatment is platinum- and taxane-based chemotherapy, which results in high initial response rates.
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have identified several links between the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICPIs) and acute kidney injury (AKI). The risk factors, clinicopathologic features, treatment and long-term outcomes in patients with ICPI-associated AKI, as well as the risk of recurrent AKI with ICPI rechallenge, are detailed in a multicenter study recently published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. These newly identified links will help guide oncologists in treating patients with ICPIs.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), or blockers, have revolutionized the way some cancer patients are treated. However, effects of these treatments can vary from patient to patient. In some cases, cancer cells and/or the tumor microenvironment can adapt to resist the therapy, leading to poorer outcomes and shorter survival.
Advances in cancer therapies have allowed clinicians to better manage cancer and extend the lives of patients, but many therapies can produce serious cardiovascular side effects, from arrhythmias and hypertension, to cardiomyopathy and even heart failure.
Stage II non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) represents less than 10 percent of the approximately 234,000 cases of lung cancer diagnosed each year in the United States. Due to its relatively low incidence, not many papers have been published on stage II NSCLC. Furthermore, few clinicians have extensive experience treating it.
Although surgery and radiation provide good disease control for localized prostate cancer, developing long-lasting approaches for treating metastatic disease has been challenging because resistance to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) frequently develops.