Dr. Silverman's major research focus is in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). He is protocol principal investigator for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) ALL Consortium, which has been conducting clinical trials in childhood ALL for over 30 years. The DFCI ALL Consortium consists of 8 institutions in the United States and Canada who collaborate on treatment protocols for children ALL, with the goal of improving survival while minimizing toxicity. Dr. Silverman oversees these studies, which have yielded the best event-free survival rates published for children with ALL.

A major focus of Dr. Silverman's research in the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium has been to improve the tolerability of asparaginase, an important chemotherapeutic agent in the treatment of childhood ALL. The group has conducted a series of randomized trials comparing different asparaginase preparations and dosing in in order to reduce dose-related toxicities without compromising efficacy.

Silverman and colleagues have also studied the effect of doxorubicin, another chemotherapeutic agent, on cardiac function in children with ALL. In a randomized trial, patients received doxorubicin either with or without dexrazoxane, a potential cardioprotectant agent. They serially measured troponin T, a marker of cardiac injury detectable in the blood. Significantly fewer patients who received dexrazoxane had elevations of troponin T, and those who did had notably lower elevations, suggesting that this agent might have prevented cardiac damage in these patients. Event-free and leukemia-free survival rates were similar in the two groups of patients. They will continue to monitor the cardiac function of these children by echocardiograms.