Perspectives from those who live it every day.
Suzanne Topalian, M.D., associate director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, is a pioneer in the search for biomarkers that predict responses to immunotherapy. In April at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in New Orleans, Topalian and her colleagues presented data linking a virus-associated cancer, called Merkel cell carcinoma - to response(...)
So-called anti-PD-1 drugs, which block the interaction between proteins on cancer and immune cells, are currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for certain patients with melanoma and non-small cell lung, kidney and bladder cancers. Now, a new study led by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University's Knight Cancer Institute and partially funded(...)
Stefanie Joho, 25, had been given a death sentence. Diagnosed with advanced colon cancer, she traveled to cancer centers around the U.S. in search of a therapy that could buy her time. She found it at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center -- the result of a combination of recent scientific advances in immunotherapy and(...)
Radiation oncologist Russell K. Hales, M.D. of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center on the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus notes that clinical trials are treatments that are usually done at cancer centers with researchers, like Hopkins. “Clinical trials take an existing therapy, and add to it an investigational therapy, or give an investigational therapy altogether,”(...)
An antibody drug that targets part of the bone growth pathway can slow the growth of human osteosarcoma implanted in mice and prevent the tumor from spreading to other parts of the body, according to a study led by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists. Osteosarcoma is one of the most common bone tumors affecting children(...)
“Many lung cancers are not treated with one therapy alone,” says Russell K. Hales, M.D. “Sometimes it takes all three treatments—surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy-- to fully treat the lung cancer. And patients may be anxious after a surgery, about waiting in recovery for other treatments like chemotherapy and radiation.” Hales, who is a radiation oncologist(...)
The two main categories of lung cancer are small-cell lung cancer, and non-small-cell lung cancer, says Russell K. Hales, M.D. “Non-small cell lung cancer is further divided into adenocarcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma. “All lung cancer is aggressive, but all cancer in its early stages can be treated, and patients can have long term control(...)
“It's not just smoking that leads to lung cancer,” says Russell K. Hales, M.D. “ We know that environmental exposures and underlying lung disease can increase the likelihood of lung cancer. Unfortunately, in patients with restrictive lung disease, we don't have any information to show that screening those patients will increase the likelihood of finding(...)
“Not everything that arises in the lung is cancer,” says Russell K. Hales, M.D., a radiation oncologist, at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center on the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus. “A nodule in the lung can be from infection, irritation, or inflammation. It can be from other diseases, unrelated to cancer at all.” Hales notes(...)
A rare cell line developed by Johns Hopkins researchers is giving scientists their first chance in decades to test new therapies for a lethal pediatric brain cancer that has few treatments. Kimmel Cancer Center scientist Eric H. Raabe, M.D., Ph.D., helped to develop the diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) cell line, grown from tumor tissue donated by(...)