Doctors can often figure out pretty quickly where cancer started — most commonly the lung, breast, colon, or prostate — and the treatment is targeted to that particular form of the disease. But for others, the doctors can’t pinpoint the cancer’s origin in any of the usual ways, making it difficult, if not impossible, to treat. That’s cancer of unknown primary, or CUP. The profiled patient’s treatment by Alexi Wright, HMS instructor in medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is mentioned.
