When the doctor is the patient
A kidney transplant and a cancer diagnosis helped shape the career of infection-control expert Steve Pergam March 23, 2015 • By Mary Engel / Fred Hutch News Service As director of infection control at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and an infectious disease researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Dr. Steve Pergam works to protect a subset of people who are particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases: cancer patients. Here he is shown with graduate research assistant Arianna Miles-Jay. Photo by Bo Jungmayer / Fred Hutch News Service
As a first-year medical student at University of Nebraska Medical Center, Dr. Steve Pergam volunteered for a vaccine campaign in Nicaragua, bringing basic childhood immunizations to squatters living in cardboard shacks. When he returned to Nicaragua the following spring to deliver a second round of immunizations, he found that local health care
Grad student Emma Wrenn receives Weintraub Award
13 recipients of prestigious award selected for research originality, innovation March 1, 2021 • By Ellie Pourbohloul / Fred Hutch News Service Emma Wrenn, a graduate student in Fred Hutch s Cheung Lab, is one of the recipients of the 2021 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award. Photo: Fred Hutch file
Emma Wrenn, a graduate student in the Molecular & Cellular Biology program at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is a 2021 recipient of the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award for outstanding achievement in the biological sciences. She is one of 13 recipients of the award this year, selected from a competitive pool of candidates from institutions around the world.
Published 01 March 2021
It’s now been 3.5 years since I last wrote anything about testicular germ cell tumors and ongoing clinical trials.
1 Although we still cure most men afflicted with this disease, we have not made any major new therapeutic advancements since I wrote that last article. Approximately, 15-20% of patients with metastatic germ cell tumors will relapse following initial chemotherapy. Even in this situation, approximately 50% can still be cured with salvage treatments, either with more conventional cisplatin-based chemotherapy or with high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell rescue.
2-4 However, patients with cisplatin-refractory disease or progressive disease following high-dose salvage chemotherapy and autologous stem cell rescue, harbor an extremely dim prognosis. In these situations, palliative chemotherapy, with regimens containing oxaliplatin, is limited in efficacy, and targeted biologic therapies have also shown limited efficacy.
When somebody in a white coat tells you something you don’t want to hear, it’s easy to decide they’re full of beans especially when nothing seems amiss. That's how Fred Hutch writer Diane Mapes felt when she was diagnosed with cancer. And how many have responded to the pandemic. But whether it's cancer or COVID-19, trust in science is key.
Molecular Imaging Assess Breast Cancer Treatment Efficacy by Angela Mohan on February 17, 2021 at 12:11 PM
Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
Nearly two-thirds of invasive breast cancers are ER-positive, and endocrine therapy is the mainstay of treatment for these tumors because of its favorable toxicity profile and efficacy. Should cancer progress in these patients, however, salvage endocrine therapy with molecularly targeted agents or chemotherapy can help. In some ER-positive breast cancer patients, cancer progression can be a result of a gradual resistance to endocrine therapy, noted Hannah M Linden, MD, FACP, Athena Distinguished Professor and breast medical oncologist at the University of Washington Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in Seattle, Washington.