Dr. Kerry Reynolds is a physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She currently serves as the Director of the Severe Immunotherapy Complications Service, in addition to being the Clinical Director for the inpatient cancer services at Mass General Cancer Center.
To learn more about the Severe Immunotherapy Complications Service and research program - click here - https://www.massgeneral.org/cancer-center/treatments-and-services/severe-immunotherapy-complications/.
Dr. Reynolds specializes in the care of hospitalized patients. Under her leadership, the Massachusetts General Cancer Center’s inpatient program evaluates and treats over 4,000 patients each year and serves as a core training experience for Harvard Medical School students, residents, and fellows each year.
After completing her own residency, chief residency at Massachusetts General, and fellowship training in Oncology at Dana-Farber/Mass General Brigham Cancer Care, she joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 2014, where she provides clinical care, supervises and educates trainees, participates in administrative affairs, and conducts research on severe toxicities associated with novel immunotherapy agents.
Her short-term academic and primary research focus is to create a clinical database and tissue collection infrastructure to capture the full national history of immune related adverse events (irAEs), and uncover predictors that will identify patients at highest risk for adverse events associated with immunotherapy, or those destined to be refractory. The overall goal is to characterize these severe clinical presentations, understand the blueprint of cells/molecules driving these clinical presentations, and ultimately develop new therapeutics to improve the treatment of this unique patient population.
Departments, Centers, & Programs:
Clinical Interests:
Treats:
Massachusetts General Hospital
55 Fruit St.
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: 617-726-2000
Medical Education
American Board Certifications
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We are in the midst of an exciting revolution in the treatment of cancer. By harnessing and enhancing the body’s immune system using novel therapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, we can reduce the amount of tumor burden in patients and, in a subset of patients and cancers, achieve long-lasting remission. However, these therapies are often limited by treatment-induced autoimmune adverse events. They affect nearly every organ system, ranging widely from minor rashes and fevers to severe gastrointestinal, pulmonary, or cardiac complications. Dr. Kerry Reynolds, along with Dr. Chloe Villani, and the Massachusetts General Hospital has taken a lead in this arena by altering our clinical practice model to provide expert multi-disciplinary care by creating the Severe Immunotherapy Complications Service. Importantly, this group is not just involved in the clinical care but they have banded together to set up infrastructure to empower specimen collection and facilitate translational research efforts, in order to understand the mechanisms driving immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Blood/tissue samples are systematically collected in an attempt to develop better therapies to treat autoimmune toxicities while maintaining anti-tumor immunity. The hope is that this will further our understanding of early mechanisms leading to autoimmune diseases and identify novel druggable targets with immunosuppressive potential. The Severe Immunotherapy Complications Service brings together expertise from a variety of clinical divisions and scientists across the institution to coordinate our care and tackle a critical problem facing many cancer patients today.
Selected Publications:
Molina GE, Zubiri L, et al, Reynolds KL. Temporal trends and outcomes among patients admitted for immune-related adverse events: A single-center retrospective cohort study from 2011-2018. Oncologist. 2021 Mar 3.
Schoenfeld SR, Aronow ME, Leaf RK, Dougan M, Reynolds KL. Diagnosis and Management of Rare Immune-Related Adverse Events. Oncologist. Jan 2020;25(1):6-14.
Reynolds KL, Sullivan RJ, Fintelmann FJ, Mansour MK, England J. Case 9-2020: A 64-Year-Old Man with Shortness of Breath, Cough, and Hypoxemia. N Engl J Med. Mar 2020;382(12):1150-1159
Reynolds KL, Guidon AC. Diagnosis and Management of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Associated Neurologic Toxicity: Illustrative Case and Review of the Literature. Oncologist. Apr 2019
Additional publications can be found - https://www.massgeneral.org/cancer-center/treatments-and-services/severe-immunotherapy-complications/
