Research and Innovation

At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, research and innovation are deeply ingrained in our approach to cancer care. We constantly strive to advance the frontiers of what is possible. We are committed to expanding knowledge and pushing the boundaries of clinical care to improve the lives of our patients.

Here are just a few examples of how we’re currently innovating care for patients:

• Prostate Cancer Treatment Discovery: A study looked at five clinical trials to see if adding a drug called docetaxel to the usual treatment helps men with high-grade prostate cancer. The trials focused on men whose cancer hasn't spread and who have low PSA levels. The results showed that adding docetaxel significantly lowered the chances of these men dying from prostate cancer.
• Immunotherapy Drug Response Study: Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital studied why some patients don't respond well to immunotherapy drugs. They found new information that could help make these drugs work better. This discovery may lead to improved treatments for patients who don't benefit from current immunotherapy drugs.
• Prostate Cancer Screening Disparities: There's ongoing debate about how effective PSA screening is for reducing deaths from prostate cancer. However, certain groups, like Black and Hispanic men, are less likely to get screened and treated for prostate cancer. This unequal access to screening and treatment may be one reason why these groups face higher death rates from prostate cancer. In a new study, researchers found that shared decision making might help reduce the impact of race disparities in prostate cancer death rates.
• Enhancing Cancer Care Guidelines: Researchers found that using advanced sequencing methods could change the guidelines for treating cancer. Their study suggests that updating these guidelines might help around 6,000 more patients in the U.S. benefit from immunotherapy treatment every year.
• Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center’s neuro-oncology physician-scientists are exploring the use of genetically-engineered oncolytic viruses that can attack glioblastoma tumors once injected inside. These viruses not only target the tumors directly but also activate the immune system to help fight against them.
• Our researchers called attention to perivascular epithelioid cell sarcoma, a rare sarcoma often mistaken for a different type of sarcoma. A small but influential prospective clinical trial led to the FDA approval of its first available treatment.