Lymphoblastic lymphoma

Summary

The Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center researchers are active members of the Children's Oncology Group, a national group of pediatric oncologists whose work includes investigational treatments for newly diagnosed patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and those who experience relapse. Studies also seek to improve the supportive care of patients undergoing treatment.

Research underway

The Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center Stem Cell Transplant Program is one of only eight institutions around the country that is investigating the use of umbilical cord transplantation.

Also under study is a new method for preventing graft versus host disease, a serious complication that occurs when transplanted cells do not recognize the tissues and organs of your child’s body and react against the your child’s tissue. The result of this treatment approach, if it continues to be as successful, will be that the degree of match between donor and the recipient will not need to be particularly close, greatly increasing the pool of potential donors for each patient. This could also eliminate the need for long-term drug therapy traditionally needed to treat graft versus host disease.

Other types of treatment currently being studied include:

• Angiogenesis inhibitors are substances that may be able to prevent the growth of tumor.
• Biological therapies use a wide range of substances that may be able to involve the body's own immune system to fight cancer or lessen harmful side effects of some treatments.