Located throughout the body, lymph nodes filter lymph, a fluid that carries white blood cells. However, cancer cells use the lymphatic system to spread to distant parts of the body. In that process, cancer cells first spread to the lymph node closest to the cancer site, called the sentinel lymph node. To determine if cancer has spread beyond the initial site, people with breast cancer often undergo a sentinel lymph node biopsy. In this procedure, a surgeon injects a dye that drains from the tumor to the closest lymph node and then removes that node.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy results can help an oncologist understand whether the cancer might return and may indicate whether the patient should have additional surgery or radiation to the lymph nodes. The results typically do not impact what treatment patients receive, according to Marjolein Smidt, a surgical oncologist at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands, but people who undergo sentinel lymph node biopsy often experience scarring and lymphedema, a potentially long-term side effect where lymph buildup causes painful swelling, typically in the arms or legs.

Smidt and colleagues investigated whether people with a small breast cancer tumor who had no signs of lymph node involvement on ultrasound could avoid sentinel lymph node biopsy without compromising their risk for recurrence. The clinical trial evaluated 1,574 people who had a breast tumor smaller than 5 centimeters, 86.6% of whom had hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative disease.

Participants received a lumpectomy and whole-breast radiation. Afterward, 749 people had sentinel lymph node biopsy and 825 skipped the procedure. In 86% of those who had the surgery, the sentinel lymph node biopsy results confirmed cancer was not present in the lymph node, so their treatment plan did not change.

Some participants had additional treatment: 17% received chemotherapy or targeted therapy and 44% took endocrine therapy. Both groups had similar follow-up treatment rates.

After a median follow-up of five years, 96.6% of people who had sentinel lymph node biopsy and 94.2% of those who did not get the surgery were alive without recurrence in the breast or nearby lymph nodes. “These findings indicate that omission of the sentinel lymph node biopsy may safely be considered” for people with early-stage hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, Smidt said in a press briefing.

People who did not have sentinel lymph node biopsy reported better health-related quality of life than those who had the procedure, according to Smidt.

Smidt cautioned that the results may not apply to all people with breast cancer because trial participants received their treatment at 25 hospitals in the Netherlands between 2015 and 2022. Treatment in the Netherlands and the U.S. differs for early-stage breast cancer, with fewer people in the Netherlands receiving endocrine therapy after initial treatment for early-stage disease, Smidt said.

Additionally, participants in the trial received whole-breast radiation, which treats the entire breast. In the U.S., most people with early-stage breast cancer instead undergo radiation that targets a smaller area of the breast where the tumor is, which might affect the safety of forgoing sentinel lymph node biopsy. “We don’t yet know if it’s completely safe to omit the sentinel lymph node [biopsy] in the context of partial-breast irradiation in all cases,” said Gaorav Gupta, a radiation oncologist at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the study.

Since sentinel lymph node biopsy helps oncologists determine the extent of radiation treatment, most studies that examine the safety of partial-breast radiation in early-stage breast cancer involve people who have undergone the procedure. The evidence supporting partial-breast radiation is less clear in those who have not had sentinel lymph node biopsy, according to Isabelle Bedrosian, a surgical oncologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who was not involved in the study. “It’s great that patients have options, yes, but it would also be nice as we move forward to try to find ways to integrate all of these different options,” Bedrosian said.

The post Limiting Surgery in Early-stage Breast Cancer appeared first on Cancer Today.

Data presented Dec. 10 at the 2025 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) suggest an investigational selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) called giredestrant could do a better job at keeping cancer from returning in people who are treated for early-stage disease. Currently, SERDs, which are a type of hormone therapy that block and break down estrogen receptors, are only approved for use in metastatic breast cancer.

Aditya L. Bardia, a physician-scientist at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles who presented the findings, described the study as a “pivotal moment,” since the research suggested a new maintenance hormone therapy in early-stage disease for the first time in 25 years.

The phase III lidERA Breast Cancer trial included 4,170 people with stage I, II or III HER2-negative, estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer who received chemotherapy, if indicated, and surgery. For maintenance treatment, half of the participants received giredestrant, while the other half received any of four standard-of-care endocrine therapies that are currently used to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence. Sixteen percent of patients received the selective estrogen receptor modulator tamoxifen, which blocks estrogen receptors, and 84% received the aromatase inhibitors.

Using data based on a median follow-up of 32 months, researchers calculated a 92.4% three-year invasive disease-free survival rate for people who received giredestrant and 89.6% for those who received standard therapy. In those who received the novel SERD, researchers calculated a 94.4% distant recurrence-free survival rate, compared with 92.1% for those who received standard endocrine therapy. (Distant recurrence-free survival tracks how long a patient remains free of metastatic recurrence—that is, cancer coming back outside the breast and lymph nodes.)

While data about overall survival were not mature, Bardia, who presented the findings at a media briefing and during a general session at SABCS, noted that current data on giredestrant showed a trend toward increased overall survival.

The oral SERD had similar side effects as standard hormone therapy. In both treatment arms, almost half of patients reported bone pain, and roughly one quarter experienced hot flashes. However, Bardia pointed out that people who took giredestrant and who experienced bone pain were less likely to stop treatment than those who were receiving standard hormone therapy.

In all, 347 people who received giredestrant discontinued treatment compared with 520 people who received the standard of care hormone therapy—a difference that could indicate giredestrant is more tolerable than current hormone therapy, Bardia said. He also said that patients who took giredestrant had higher rates of bradycardia, which is defined as slow heart rate and is a known side effect of oral SERDs.

Most patients with early-stage breast cancer now receive CDK4/6 inhibitors with hormone therapy as part of maintenance treatment, said Lisa A. Carey, a physician-scientist at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina who was a discussant during the session.

Based on five- and seven-year data from CDK4/6 inhibitor trials, the addition of a CDK4/6 inhibitor to standard hormone therapy has increased invasive disease-free survival rates by about 4.5 to 6.5 percentage points in stage II and III breast cancer, who made up the majority of people on the trial, Carey added. She said that, if the oral SERD became available, giredestrant might be an option for patients who were unable to tolerate CDK4/6 inhibitors. Doctors might also consider using a SERD for certain patients after they finished the standard two to three years of treatment with a CDK4/6 inhibitor and hormone therapy. “I say that with some trepidation because this was not how the study was designed, but these are practical considerations,” Carey said. An ongoing sub-study that is part of lidERA will also be examining the addition of the CDK4/6 inhibitor Verzenio (abemaciclib) to giredestrant for early-stage breast cancer.

Carey also questioned how much a new SERD in early-stage cancer would cost, given the cost of new oral SERDS in the metastatic setting. “Efficacy is better [than other hormone therapies], toxicity is no worse, but cost is a concern,” Carey said, as she presented a slide with the monthly wholesale costs for new SERDs at more than $22,000 a month. In comparison, standard hormone therapies were all under $1,000. “We should all acknowledge that there is a large potential impact on the national health care system if giredestrant is priced similar to oral SERDs that are given in the metastatic setting.”

The post New Hormone Therapy Extends Remission in Early-stage Hormone Receptor-positive Breast Cancer appeared first on Cancer Today.

TKI Inhibitor Addition Prolongs Progression-free Survival in Metastatic Breast Cancer

People with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who received the targeted therapy Tukysa (tucatinib) in addition to standard care lived longer without disease progression than those who had standard treatment, according to results of a phase III clinical trial presented at the 2025 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Results were simultaneously published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. People with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer typically receive chemotherapy and targeted therapy to treat the disease and then continue targeted therapy alone to keep it under control, Healio reported. This targeted therapy often consists of Herceptin (trastuzumab) and Perjeta (pertuzumab), but researchers wanted to see if adding a third drug could keep the disease under control for longer. The trial involved 654 women with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who had no evidence of disease progression following initial treatment. All participants began Herceptin and Perjeta and were randomly assigned to receive either Tukysa, which is a TKI inhibitor, or a placebo. After a median follow-up of 23 months, people who received Tukysa had a progression-free survival of 24.9 months, compared with 16.3 months for those who received a placebo. Among people who received Tukysa, 13.5% stopped treatment due to side effects, such as diarrhea and nausea. The trial results “demonstrated that the addition of tucatinib to trastuzumab and pertuzumab represents an enhanced first-line therapy option for patients, providing an opportunity not only to prolong time to disease progression, but also providing an opportunity for these patients to have an increased amount of time off chemotherapy,” Erika P. Hamilton, a study author and the director of breast cancer research at Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, Tennessee, said in the Healio article.

Immunotherapy Combination Extends Survival After Multiple Myeloma Progression

Among people with multiple myeloma whose disease progressed after initial therapy, those who received a combination of two immunotherapies lived longer than those who received standard treatment, according to results of a phase III clinical trial presented at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida. The trial involved 587 people with multiple myeloma that had returned or not responded to prior treatment. Half received standard treatment, which is the immunotherapy drug Darzalex (daratumumab) with the corticosteroid dexamethasone and either of the targeted therapy drugs pomalidomide or bortezomib. The other half received a new regimen, which also included Darzalex but added a second immunotherapy drug, Tecvayli (teclistamab). After three years, 83.3% of people who received the immunotherapy combo were alive, compared with 65% of those who had standard care. Additionally, three-year progression-free survival was 83.4% for people who received Darzalex and Tecvayli and 29.7% for those who had standard care, meaning the combination lowered the risk for progression or death by 83%, MedPage Today reported. María-Victoria Mateos, a study author and the director of the myeloma program at University Hospital of Salamanca in Spain, said the combination, which is given as an injection, works well in multiple myeloma because Darzalex stimulates T cells, which Tecvayli then directs to the tumor, MedPage Today reported. The trial “showed unprecedented efficacy, supporting a new standard of care in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma patients … with a broad potential across not only academic but also community settings,” Mateos said in the MedPage Today article.

Time of Day Patients Receive Immunotherapy Treatment Linked to Survival

The time of day when people with cancer receive their treatment may impact their outcomes, according to a study published in Cancer. Researchers analyzed outcomes for 397 people with advanced small cell lung cancer who received one of two intravenous immunotherapy drugs—Tecentriq (atezolizumab) or Imfinzi (durvalumab)—along with chemotherapy between May 2019 and October 2023. People who typically received their infusions before 3 p.m. had a 51.7% lower risk for disease progression and a 62.7% lower risk of dying than people who had their treatment after 3 p.m. “Adjusting infusion timing is a straightforward and easily implementable intervention that can be adopted across diverse health care settings without additional cost,” Yongchang Zhang, a study author and a medical oncologist at the Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine in Changsha, China, said in a press release. Researchers said the difference likely has to do with how the body’s circadian rhythm, or internal clock, affects immune response, but further research is needed to fully explain the results, HealthDay reported.

AACR Releases First Pediatric Cancer Progress Report

In the mid-1970s, 63% of children with cancer lived for five years after their diagnosis. Today, that number stands at nearly 90%, according to the first Pediatric Cancer Progress Report from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), which was released Dec. 4. (The AACR publishes Cancer Today.) The report highlights how cancer research has fueled improved treatment for pediatric cancers, including the 30 targeted therapies and immunotherapies that the Food and Drug Administration approved for children and adolescents between 2015 and 2025. However, much of the progress in pediatric cancer is due to advances in adult cancers. The report called on the federal government to allocate more funds for pediatric cancer research. “There’s the potential to make incredible discoveries in the pediatric cancer setting,” Elaine Mardis, co-chair of the report’s steering committee and co-executive director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told Healio. “I think there are huge opportunities, especially with newer genomic technologies, to make substantial gains in terms of our improved understanding of mechanisms driving pediatric cancers, if only we could get more federal investment in this basic cancer research.” The report also drew attention to disparities in pediatric cancer outcomes and the challenges survivors face. Compared with white children, Hispanic children have higher rates of cancer, and Black children have a 30% higher risk of dying, the report found. Additionally, 60% to 90% of children with cancer will develop long-term health conditions, such as heart disease, hearing loss and additional cancers.

The post December 12: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

The Sobering Truth About Alcohol and Breast Cancer

Examining research that established a link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer, Julie R. Palmer, a cancer epidemiologist at Boston University’s Slone Epidemiology Center, pointed to a 1977 study that was one of the first to connect cancer and alcohol use. Researchers found drinking alcohol was associated with breast cancer and six other cancer types. Then, a 1982 study found people who consumed more than four drinks per week had a nearly 2.5-times higher risk for breast cancer than those who drank little or no alcohol. Additionally, a 1987 study found women who reported drinking about one alcoholic drink daily had a higher risk for breast cancer than those who did not drink any alcohol. “There’s indeed overwhelming evidence that consuming alcohol is associated with an increased risk,” Palmer said.

A 2015 analysis found women who had 5 grams of alcohol—less than one drink—per day had an elevated risk for breast cancer. This research suggests “even very light drinking may increase the risk,” Palmer said. But, she cautioned, people tend to underestimate how much alcohol they drink, so those who reported minimal drinking may have actually consumed more alcohol.

Studies have consistently showed women who binge drink—having four or more drinks in a three-hour period—have a higher risk for breast cancer than women who do not drink, according to Palmer.

Researchers have explored whether elevated risk for breast cancer from drinking affects some women more than others. A review published Nov. 24, 2024, in Alcohol Clinical & Experimental Research found both pre- and postmenopausal women who drink have an increased risk for breast cancer, but the risk was higher among postmenopausal women.

Genetics also may play a role in who develops the disease, Palmer said. People have different variants of the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) gene, which encodes the enzymes that convert alcohol into acetaldehyde, a toxic chemical that damages DNA and proteins. Most people have the ADH1C variant, but one type of ADH1C quickly metabolizes alcohol into acetaldehyde, and another is slow to process the chemical. In a 2006 study of women with the ADH1C variant, researchers found women who had the fast-metabolizing gene were more likely to develop breast cancer than whose with the slow-metabolizing variant.

Can Cutting Back on Drinking Lower Breast Cancer Risk?

Those who already drink alcohol may question whether cutting back could reduce their risk. There’s limited evidence to answer that question, according to Mary Beth Terry, an epidemiologist at Columbia University Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center in New York City.

In a 2023 review Terry co-authored, researchers found hundreds of studies explored the alcohol-breast cancer link, but just 21 studies measured outcomes associated with stopping or reducing alcohol consumption. Our culture often thinks people don’t need to stop drinking unless they have alcohol use disorder, Terry said. “We need to be asking these questions about patterns of use, reduction of use, cessation of use,” she said.

Some limited evidence does, however, suggest stopping alcohol consumption may lower a person’s breast cancer risk. A 2022 study found, among people who drank more than two drinks per day, people who reduced their drinking to about one drink per day had an 8% lower cancer risk than those who continued to drink heavily. Additionally, a meta-analysis published Dec. 5, 2024, in Breast Cancer Research that Terry co-authored found reducing alcohol use was associated with a lower risk of developing hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.

Many people remain unaware that alcohol can increase cancer risk. “Most people still—even though we’ve known of these data for 50 years—are not aware of this,” Terry said. In recent years, however, guidelines, such as those from the American Cancer Society, have begun to caution people to limit or stop alcohol use. Terry encouraged doctors and patients to have meaningful conversations about alcohol’s potential dangers.

How Obesity Raises Breast Cancer Risk

Obesity is another modifiable risk factor for breast cancer, as well as 12 other cancers. Researchers are investigating how obesity impacts the body at a cellular level to promote breast cancer development and progression, according to Kristy A. Brown, a cell biologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City.

Cellular research shows a high amount of adipose tissue, or fat, in the breast may elevate breast cancer risk and encourage disease progression, according to Brown. When fat cells die, they cause inflammation, which is a risk factor for breast cancer. Lab studies also show fat cells release fatty acids that provide energy for cancer cells. Additionally, the body uses adipose tissue to convert hormones called androgens into estrogen, which many breast cancers depend on to grow.

Obesity can also inhibit the tumor suppression protein p53, which may contribute to breast cancer proliferation, Brown said.

Brown and colleagues investigated how obesity affects people already at increased risk for breast cancer. In a 2023 study in Science Translational Medicine, they analyzed breast tissue samples from women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutations, which are associated with a high risk for breast and ovarian cancers. They found women with obesity had more DNA damage in their breast cells than those who were at a healthy weight.

Additionally, the study found elevated levels of insulin and estradiol, a form of estrogen, also stimulated DNA damage. “As we think about cancer prevention and treatment, we should be thinking about not only cell-targeting agents but thinking about the microenvironment and potentially the whole body,” she said.

Breast cancer survivor and patient advocate Stacey Tinianov encouraged people with breast cancer and their oncologists to discuss simple behavioral changes that can improve patients’ health. “If we can give some guidance on ways that potentially they can reduce their risk of a recurrence, reduce their risk of a metastases … that’s critically important,” she said.

The post Lifestyle Factors and Breast Cancer Risk appeared first on Cancer Today.

HPV Vaccines Found Effective and Safe in Research Reviews

Two large research reviews show that human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines are safe and effective at preventing cervical cancer. One review included 225 observational studies, representing more than 132 million people from around the world. Women who were vaccinated before age 16 have an 80% lower risk of developing cervical cancer. The second study, which looked at 60 randomized controlled trials, found a 30% reduction in girls or women who tested positive for abnormal cells on the cervix that were related to HPV infection and can potentially progress to cancer compared with unvaccinated peers. When looking specifically at abnormal cells linked to strains of HPV targeted by the vaccine, they found a 60% reduction. In both reviews, researchers noted that common short-term side effects could include mild pain or swelling around the injection site. “The vaccine works. Full stop,” cervical cancer researcher Linda Eckert told NBC News. “The vaccine is safe. Full stop.” Eckert, an obstetrician and gynecologist at UW Medicine, was not involved in either study. In November, an Australian cancer research organization reported there were no new cases of cervical cases in 2021 for women under age 25 for the first year since they began tracking diagnoses in 1982, NBC News reported. In addition, Scotland reported no new cases of cervical cancer in women fully vaccinated.

FDA Approves Immunotherapy for Stomach Cancers

The Food and Drug Administration approved the immunotherapy drug Imfinzi (durvalumab) to be given with chemotherapy before and after surgery to treat gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer. This is the first immunotherapy regimen approved for administration before surgery in these cancer types, Healio reported. The agency based this approval on the phase III MATTERHORN trial in 948 patients. Patients receiving Imfinzi along with a combination of chemotherapy drugs before and after surgery were 29% more likely to live without cancer progressing two years after treatment than patients receiving a placebo with chemotherapy and surgery. Gastric cancer, also called stomach cancer, forms in the lining of the stomach, and gastroesophageal junction cancer forms where the stomach connects with the esophagus. In previous coverage of the MATTERHORN trial results, lead author Yelena Janjigian, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, told Cancer Today it was notable that Imfinzi improved outcomes in cases with different biomarkers and tumor types. “For patients, this offers a meaningful step forward: better long-term outcomes without major added toxicity,” Janjigian said.

Breast Density Information Can Increase Confusion, Anxiety

Women who received notifications about breast density after mammography reported more anxiety and confusion compared with women who didn’t receive breast density notifications, according to research from Australia. Dense breast tissue can look similar to cancer on mammograms, which can camouflage tumors. Women with dense breasts may also have a higher risk of developing breast cancer. The study, published in BMJ, included 2,401 women who had been found to have dense breasts through mammogram screening in Australia between September 2023 and July 2024 and who were divided into three groups: those whose mammogram results did not include breast density findings, those who received their mammogram and breast density results accompanied by written information about breast density, and those who received the results with a link to an informational video. Four to six weeks after screening, researchers sent participants surveys about their feelings and plans to follow up on the findings with their health care providers. Women who were told they had dense breasts were about 30% more likely to report feeling anxiety than those who were not told about their breast density. Compared with women who were not told about breast density, those who received written information were 92% more likely to report feeling confused, and those directed to the informational video were 76% more likely to report confusion. Women who were told they had dense breasts were more likely to say they planned to speak with their general practitioner about the results, the Guardian reported. “Knowing personal risk of breast cancer could allow people to make informed decisions about their own breast health. But studies like this one are really important to understand the impact of informing people about personal risk factors like breast density, including on a person’s mental health,” Melanie Sturtevant, associate director of policy, evidence and influencing at Breast Cancer Now, a nonprofit that supports research for breast cancer in the United Kingdom, told the Guardian. In 2024, the U.S. required medical practices to include breast density notifications with breast cancer screening results. However, there are no established guidelines about whether women with dense breasts should receive additional screening.

The post December 5: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

Don’t ignore blood in your stool.

Research presented at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress, held Oct. 4 to 7, 2025, in Chicago, showed that rectal bleeding was the top indicator of colorectal cancer in people under 50 who had colonoscopies. The study analyzed results from 443 people under 50 who received colonoscopies at the University of Louisville Health System between 2021 and 2023. It found that rectal bleeding, which can appear in different ways such as blood found in stool or on toilet paper, was more predictive of colorectal cancer than family history of the disease or smoking.

Of people included, 7 in 10 underwent a colonoscopy because they were experiencing a medical symptom. About 44% of people in the study were ultimately diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Among those with colorectal cancer, about 4 in 10 reported bleeding. In comparison, 3 in 10 had a family history of the disease, which was the next highest risk factor.

Other studies have isolated rectal bleeding as a top predictor of a colorectal cancer diagnosis, says Joshua Demb, a health science researcher at the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego VA Healthcare System who was not involved in the research. He and colleagues did a review that examined red flags for early-onset colorectal cancer, cases diagnosed before age 50. That review, published May 24, 2024, in JAMA Network Open, found about 45% of those diagnosed with colorectal cancer reported rectal bleeding along with 40% who reported abdominal pain, and 27% who noted a change in their bowel habits.

The review also found people who had a colonoscopy and received a colorectal cancer diagnosis waited on average four to six months between when symptoms first appeared and the diagnosis of colorectal cancer. That lines up with previous research that found delays between symptom presentation and colorectal cancer diagnosis are up to 40% longer in young people than in people diagnosed after age 50 and adds to concerns the disease may advance to more perilous stages during that crucial window, Demb says.

“We’re often seeing early-onset patients … presenting with stage III or IV cancer,” Demb says. “[Perhaps] it could have actually been an earlier stage, had it been detected earlier.”

When to Tell Your Doctor About Blood in Stool

So, what should one look out for?

It’s important to know that blood in the stool can look different from individual to individual, says Kimmie Ng, a medical oncologist and director of the Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Darker colored stool can be a sign of bleeding higher up in the digestive track. Bright red blood, including in the toilet bowl or on toilet paper, often comes from lower in the rectum and could indicate benign conditions such as hemorrhoids or an anal fissure.

Depending on the characteristics of the bleeding and the presence or absence of other symptoms that are associated with colorectal cancer, such as abdominal pain, changes in bowel habits or unexplained weight loss, a doctor may recommend a colonoscopy or start with other tests. These can include physical evaluations, X-rays, and blood and stool tests identify the cause of gastrointestinal bleeding, according to the National Institutes of Health.

But there’s no way for a person at home to tell definitively what caused the bleeding, and Ng urges people to be proactive.

“The take home is, if there’s any blood, people should see their doctor about it,” Ng says. “Certainly if it’s not going away or it’s getting worse, it does need to be worked up further.”

The post A Common Sign of Colorectal Cancer That Young Adults Might Dismiss appeared first on Cancer Today.

1 in 5 Eligible People Underwent Lung Cancer Screening in 2024

Since March 2021, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that adults ages 50 to 80 with a significant smoking history have an annual CT scan to screen for lung cancer. The recommendation applies to those with a 20 pack-year smoking history who either currently smoke or quit within the last 15 years. People with a 20 pack-year smoking history have smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day for 10 years or an equivalent amount, the New York Times reported. However, people have been slow to comply with the recommendations, as 1 in 5 people who qualified underwent lung cancer screening in 2024, according to a research letter published in JAMA. Researchers reviewed survey responses from 2,124 people eligible for lung cancer screening based on the 2021 recommendations. Nearly 19% of screening-eligible people reported being up to date on their lung cancer screening. Rates were lower in people younger than 60 and higher in those with other conditions, like heart disease or asthma. If rates increased to 100% in eligible people, the researchers projected screening could prevent over 62,000 deaths over a five-year period, MedPage Today reported. Additionally, everyone whose life was spared would live approximately 14 years longer, according to the Times. The study also included an additional 4,390 screening-ineligible people, of whom 18.1% had a smoking history of at least 20 pack-years but quit more than 15 years earlier. For people ineligible for lung cancer screening, 100% uptake could prevent over 29,000 deaths. The findings may warrant revisiting current eligibility recommendations for lung cancer screening, the researchers wrote. “Each year, many individuals die of lung cancer who probably would still be alive had they been screened—reflecting both low uptake among currently eligible adults and overly restrictive eligibility criteria that exclude many at high risk,” Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang, a thoracic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues wrote in an accompanying editorial.

Breast Cancer Risks Depends on the Type of Birth Control

The amount of progestin, a substance resembling the female hormone progesterone, may be the driver in which types of birth control increase breast cancer risk more than others, a study published in JAMA Oncology found. Researchers analyzed data from over 2 million adolescent girls and women, approximately 16,300 of whom were diagnosed with breast cancer during an average of 10 years’ follow-up. Women who had ever used hormonal birth control had a 24% higher risk for developing breast cancer than those who had never used it. In other words, out of every 7,752 women who have used birth control, one of them will be diagnosed with breast cancer. However, researchers noticed results varied when broken down by birth control type. Taking birth control containing estrogen and progestin increased a woman’s breast cancer risk by 12%, whereas using birth control with progestin alone increased it by 21%. Oral birth control containing desogestrel, a synthetic hormone that acts like progesterone, either alone or in a combination increased the risk for breast cancer by 18% to 19%. Implants with etonogestrel, a synthetic hormone typically inserted in a person’s arm, increased a woman’s breast cancer risk by 22%, compared with 9% for oral pills containing a combination including the synthetic hormone levonorgestrel. A hormonal intrauterine device with levonorgestrel increased this risk by 13%. Of note, researchers saw no significant increased risk with the etonogestrel vaginal ring, medroxyprogesterone acetate injection or oral pills containing drospirenone, a synthetic type of progestin, although many women in the study used these formulations. Despite these findings, posts on TikTok and other social media platforms have assumed the results mean that all birth control causes cancer, highlighting how study findings can easily be taken out of context, KFF Health News reported. “I get really angry at this because it’s designed to scare people like me away from birth control, which has made my life so much better in many ways,” Rachel Fey, interim co-CEO of Power to Decide, an organization that advocates for the right to choose whether to get pregnant and have a child, told KFF Health News. “It’s really frustrating … especially when it’s given without context. And then in this era of social media, it can just take off without anybody who knows what they’re talking about providing that context.”

Immunotherapy Side Effects Can Increase Risk for Colon Adenoma

People who received immune checkpoint inhibitors to treat cancer and developed diarrhea and colitis—known side effects of the drugs—have an increased risk for adenomas in the colon, according to research presented at the American College of Gastroenterology 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting in Phoenix. Adenomas, a type of colon polyp, form as non-cancerous tumors in gland-like cells of tissues that line organs and other parts of the body. Because adenomas are the polyps that most often change into colorectal cancer, health care professionals recommend removing them to prevent them from growing larger or becoming cancerous. “The cancer population is already at a higher baseline adenoma risk, and our findings show that [immune checkpoint inhibitor]-mediated diarrhea and colitis compounds this,” Tanvi Gupta, a study author and the chief medical resident at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, said during the presentation. Immune checkpoint inhibitors, like PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors, have proven to be effective treatments for many cancers. However, since immune checkpoint inhibitors take the brakes off of the immune system so it can recognize and attack cancer cells, they can also cause chronic inflammation, leading to side effects such as diarrhea and colitis, which is inflammation of the colon. In the study, researchers analyzed data from 248 people who developed diarrhea and colitis from immune checkpoint inhibitors, as confirmed by colonoscopy. Most people in the study had melanoma or a genitourinary cancer, like kidney, bladder or prostate cancer. Of the people in the study, 71 developed adenomas, with over 50% of the polyps developing within 7.5 months of the start of diarrhea and colitis symptoms, Medscape reported. The rate at which adenomas developed declined over the following six years. In 210 people who underwent follow-up colonoscopy within one year of experiencing diarrhea and colitis, nearly 16% of those without a history of polyps developed adenomas, compared with nearly 34% of people who had a history of polyps. Despite having no prior history of polyps, people who developed these side effects had a higher risk for developing adenomas than those who didn’t. Additionally, people with a history of inflammation and adenomas when starting treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors were significantly more likely to develop new adenomas.

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An article published Sept. 15, 2025, in JCO Oncology Practice points to research that shows biotin can interfere with some lab tests that doctors use to track cancer and see how well treatment is working. And while biotin may help improve hair and nail growth for people who have known deficiencies in vitamin B7, the study points out there is limited data to suggest it will help people with hair loss due to cancer treatment or other causes.

Some lab tests used in cancer rely on a chemical reaction that involves biotin, so when someone takes extra biotin from supplements, it can make results look higher or lower than they really are. For example, biotin can cause hormone levels to appear falsely elevated, leading oncologists to delay endocrine therapy in postmenopausal women with breast cancer. Likewise, it can cause prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels to appear lower than they actually are, masking cancer recurrence in prostate cancer survivors.

Tests that can be affected by biotin are also used in care for thyroid, endometrial, ovarian, germ cell, and paraneoplastic cancers.

Discussing Supplements With Doctors

Meanwhile, people are getting guidance on supplements from outside the clinic. The article cites a study published May 15, 2024, in Supportive Care in Cancer that surveyed 219 women from online support groups for people using scalp cooling to prevent cancer-related hair loss. That survey found that only 5% of people who responded spoke to a dermatologist about hair loss concerns though nearly 22% reported trying over-the-counter vitamins and supplements.

“Our work on online support groups for patients experiencing hair loss from cancer treatments suggests that many patients are starting supplements based on their own research and word-of-mouth recommendations,” Layna Mager, a medical student at the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus who co-authored the report, says.

Yet it is critical, Mager says, for cancer patients to let their care teams know about any supplement use. “Biotin, along with many other over-the-counter supplements, are not widely regulated or studied with randomized clinical trials. Additionally, these studies rarely, if ever, include cancer patients, making it difficult to comment on side effects and efficiency in this patient population.”

Pieter Cohen, a primary care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, says that supplements should be taken with the same seriousness as prescriptions and other drugs.

In addition to speaking to their doctors about supplement use, people in treatment can get up-to-date information on products they are interested in from the National Institute of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements, Cohen says. Information included in advertisements and on supplement bottles may not be reliable as it does not have to be proven in large-scale human studies, he says.

“The health claims on supplements can be completely separated from reality,” Cohen explains. Regulations prohibit supplement companies from making claims about treating, curing or preventing a disease, but they often get around these restrictions by using vague language that suggests benefits without a specific claim.

For example, people with cancer may be worried about getting infections. “You can’t sell a supplement and say it’ll treat an infection, that would be a disease claim,” Cohen says—but it is legal to say something like “this will support immune health.”

Hair loss supplements can use the same approach. “You couldn’t legally say this treats alopecia, but you could say this supplement maintains healthy hair,” Cohen says.

Safe Options for Cancer-related Hair Loss

People with cancer can safely use topical minoxidil, often sold under the brand name Rogaine, to support hair growth after completing treatment, the JCO Oncology Practice article notes.

“Topical minoxidil is a safe, affordable treatment for chemotherapy-induced alopecia that is available over the counter,” Mager says, noting that it typically takes about four to six months of regular use to see the effects. A scalp-cooling device, which can help prevent hair loss at the time of treatment, is another option, she adds.

Cancer survivors who are taking biotin supplements should stop taking the supplement before blood tests. “When taking biotin, lab checks of important hormone levels may be skewed, so it is important to hold biotin for at least 72 hours prior to any planned blood work,” Mager says.

The post Biotin Supplements Can Skew Cancer Lab Results appeared first on Cancer Today.

Many Doctors Avoid Giving Hormone Therapy to Women in Surgical Menopause After Gynecologic Cancer

Hormone therapy can relieve menopausal symptoms, such as hot flashes and night sweats, in women who have surgery to remove their ovaries after endometrial or ovarian cancer. But many doctors do not prescribe estrogen-based hormone therapy to their patients who have gynecologic malignancies. A study, published in Menopause, surveyed 293 gynecologic oncologists and gynecologists in 2024 about their prescribing habits for women with gynecologic cancers who had surgery to remove the ovaries—a common treatment for endometrial, ovarian and cervical cancers. Of the doctors surveyed, 36.2% responded that they did not prescribe estrogen for women who had endometrial cancer and 34.8% responded that they did not prescribe it for women who had ovarian cancer. A 2020 statement from the Society of Gynecologic Oncology suggests estrogen can relieve symptoms in young women who experience menopause as a result of their cancer treatment. “We’re probably 50-50 on whether or not people know about this,” Jamie L. McDowell, a study author and a gynecologic oncology fellow at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, told Healio. “One of the number one causes of endometrial cancer is unopposed estrogen. It feels counterintuitive to say it would be OK to then give these patients estrogen after you’ve taken out their uterus. It’s scary for people.”

Crowdfunding Shortfalls Point to Unmet Financial Needs in Cancer Care

Many people who are overwhelmed by the cost of cancer treatment turn to crowdfunding sites to close the gap, but a recent study shows that many of these campaigns fall short of the requested amount. The study, published in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, explored 78,338 cancer-related GoFundMe campaigns started between Jan. 1, 2021, and Feb. 28, 2023. Just 12% of these campaigns reached their goals. The median goal for each campaign was $10,000, and the median amount raised was $4,000. Nationally, the campaigns raised a total of $233.7 million annually—or $506 million over the study period. That amount, while sizable, only accounted for a third of the $1.47 billion requested. “I’m really touched by the kindness and empathy from individual peer-to-peer donors,” study author and health economist Zhiyuan (Jason) Zheng, of the American Cancer Society, told MedPage Today. “Each donation averaged something like $100. Given the rising health care costs, this is something we can do to help each other. Still, the amount of help asked is far more than what they received.”

PSMA-PET Scans Lead to More Durable Disease Control in Prostate Cancer

PSMA-PET scans use targeted molecules to deliver radioactive materials to prostate cancer cells—which help to find signs of progression on PET scans. A study shows that PSMA-PET scans can help guide decisions to intensify radiation treatment in men who have rising PSA levels after prostate removal surgery. In a phase II clinical trial published in JAMA Oncology, 64 men received standard radiation to the pelvic bed while another 64 underwent a PSMA-PET scan to guide their radiation treatment. In the latter group, 34 received intensified radiation therapy based on lesions found in PSMA-PET images, while the other 31 had no detected lesions and received standard radiation treatment. The men who had PSMA-PET scans to guide their radiation treatment were less likely to have signs of recurrence, including rising PSA levels, than those who received standard radiation treatment without PSMA-PET guidance. “Our study shows that the greater accuracy of PSMA-PET does translate into better patient outcomes when it guides targeted intensification of salvage radiotherapy,” lead author Colin Belliveau, a radiation oncology resident at the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal in Quebec, told Medscape.

The post November 14: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

At a special session during the 18thAmerican Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held Sept. 18 to 21, 2025, in Baltimore, presenters shared approaches to attract and connect more people to clinical trials. (The AACR publishes Cancer Today, and Cancer Today Editor-in-Chief William G. Nelson moderated the session.)

Despite ongoing efforts to expand participation across underrepresented racial, ethnic and socioeconomic populations, clinical trials still do not reflect the diverse makeup of the U.S. population. For example, people of color make up 42% of the U.S. population, but they account for 20% of clinical trial participants, said Nina Bickell, a physician and health equity researcher at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, in a presentation at the session. The lack of diverse enrollment in clinical trials limits people’s access to new treatments and reduces the generalizability of clinical trial findings. “If we want to make sure that we’re treating people with the best, most effective treatments, we need to ensure that, in fact, these treatments are effective for all individuals getting treated,” Bickell said.

Speakers at the session highlighted four programs supported by grants from Stand Up To Cancer that sought to broaden access to clinical trials.

Building Bridges

Early-phase clinical trials, which typically enroll a small group of participants and test the safety and appropriate dosages of treatments, often take place at large academic hospitals. However, many people in underserved areas receive their care at safety-net hospitals, which treat patients regardless of their ability to pay.

Public health researcher Linda Fleisher presented observations from the ADACT Initiative, which sought to increase collaboration between two Philadelphia institutions: Fox Chase Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center that regularly conducts cancer research and where Fleisher works, and Temple University Hospital, a safety-net hospital that serves an area with high levels of poverty and cancer mortality. Although only six miles apart and within the same health system, people who get care at Temple and don’t drive may need to take three buses to participate in a clinical trial at Fox Chase.

The ADACT Initiative established direct relationships between doctors at Temple University Hospital and Fox Chase. The doctors from each hospital collaborated to discuss patients and available trials, with the hope that they could identify potential matches.

Fleisher said the team needed to finetune the workflow to efficiently connect people getting care at Temple to clinical trials at Fox Chase. “I think the first patient that came through, it was 15 emails to 20 people, trying to make all these connections,” she said. But concerted efforts helped to make better collaboration possible.

In Los Angeles, researchers identified similar clinical trial barriers. People who were treated at public hospitals often weren’t aware of the clinical trials being offered at USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, according to presenter Jennifer Tsui, a public health researcher at USC Norris. In addition, doctors at public hospitals had trouble getting responses to questions about enrollment. That delay could mean losing people who have reservations about participation, said Tsui.

Reaching Communities

Coordination between public and academic hospitals is essential to recruiting people who are historically underrepresented in clinical trials, but ultimately, research still depends on people choosing to participate.

In Dallas, researchers explored ways to connect people getting care at Parkland Hospital, a safety-net hospital, with trials at UT Southwestern Medical Center, an academic research institution. Before starting a trial, applying patients had to go through several logistical steps—including transferring medical records and getting approval for financial aid—that could be barriers to participation. Of the 55 people who were referred to the program, 15 successfully enrolled in early-phase trials, said Sukh Makhnoon, a public health researcher at UT Southwestern. In addition, joining a clinical trial meant spending additional time in medical appointments at a different facility. Makhnoon noted that, like the Los Angeles program, applying could also be a long process, in one case lasting 76 days between submitting an application and starting the treatment.

Bickell discussed a program introduced in New York City called DISRUPT, which stands for Diversity and Inclusion in Research Underpinning Trials. DISRUPT, she said, attempted to flip the typical recruiting model by focusing on patients. Every week, participating care centers used an algorithm to match the people coming in for appointments with clinical trials they could be eligible for.

The DISRUPT researchers found that, while there are more opportunities to join a trial when cancer progresses, it is a difficult time to introduce people to clinical research as a treatment option. “Many patients are really overwhelmed at this point in time and don’t even want to think about a clinical trial,” Bickell said. “And that really raises one of the important lessons learned. It’s so important to normalize the idea of clinical trials early on, before they’re actually necessary, so it doesn’t catch patients off guard.”

DISRUPT has partnered with artists and filmmakers to raise awareness about clinical trials long before people are approached to participate in one. Bickell said future research should explore how to lay that groundwork earlier in care so patients can view clinical trials as an option from the start—not as a last resort.

Though many people blame historical abuses for hesitation among Black people and other minority groups to join clinical trials, Bickell said people she spoke to through DISRUPT noted that their decisions were formed by personal interactions with doctors and researchers. “One of the biggest things we keep hearing out in the community about why people don’t want to participate in clinical research is because of their own experiences,” Bickell said. “It really boils down to not being treated well by the health care system.”

The post Connecting More Patients to Cancer Clinical Trials appeared first on Cancer Today.

Women With Intermediate-risk Breast Cancer May Not Need Radiation

Radiation has long been a mainstay of early-stage breast cancer treatment, but oncologists have been reevaluating which patients need to receive this therapy. People at high risk for recurrence typically undergo radiation following a mastectomy, but those with a low recurrence risk usually can forgo radiation and avoid its side effects, like skin changes and swelling. Now, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found women with intermediate-risk breast cancer can also skip postmastectomy radiation without raising their risk for recurrence, the New York Times reported. The phase III clinical trial included 1,607 women with intermediate-risk breast cancer who had undergone a mastectomy, lymph node surgery and systemic therapy. About half of the participants received chest-wall radiation, while the others did not. After a median follow-up of 9.6 years, 81.4% of the radiation group was alive compared with 81.9% of those who did not receive radiation. Researchers found recurrences in the chest wall specifically were somewhat higher without radiation, affecting 1.1% of the radiation group and 2.5% of those who skipped radiation “We’ve now shown that with contemporary anticancer treatments, the risk of recurrence is very, very low—sufficiently low to avoid radiotherapy in most patients,” Ian Kunkler, the study’s lead author and a clinical oncologist at Edinburgh Cancer Centre in Scotland, told the Times.

Bispecific, Chemotherapy Combination Helps Control Esophageal Cancer

The combination of a bispecific antibody and chemotherapy helped control disease progression in people with advanced esophageal cancer, according to a study published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. The current standard first-line treatment for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is immunotherapy with a PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitor plus chemotherapy. However, not all people with the disease have long-term responses to this combination, so researchers are trying to identify additional treatment options, Targeted Oncology reported. In a phase II clinical trial, 43 people with advanced or metastatic ESCC received the bispecific antibody cadonilimab, which targets the proteins PD-1 and CTLA-4, along with chemotherapy. Participants survived without disease progression for about 7 months. Researchers found 81.4% of patients saw their cancer significantly shrink or completely disappear as a result of the treatment, which they noted is higher than the 69.3% to 72.1% seen in phase III clinical trials of a PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor plus chemotherapy in ESCC. Slightly more than half of participants reported severe side effects that required medical attention, including low sodium levels and depletion of white blood cells that help fight infection.

Colorectal Cancer Screenings Rise Among Younger Adults

Following changes to screening recommendations, colonoscopies have jumped nearly tenfold among people ages 45 to 49, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. Previously, guidelines had suggested people ages 50 to 75 have a colonoscopy every 10 years to screen for colorectal cancer. As more adults younger than 50 developed the disease, the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) lowered the recommended starting age to 45 in 2018 and 2021, respectively, MedPage Today reported. With the changes, approximately 20 million more Americans became eligible for screening. To evaluate the impact of the guideline updates, researchers looked at 7.8 million colonoscopies performed in people ages 45 to 75 at 1,350 U.S. hospitals between 2016 and 2024. Based on when the ACS and the USPSTF updated their recommendations, researchers divided the results into three time periods: 2016 to 2018, 2018 to 2021 and 2021 to 2023. They found 1,578 people ages 45 to 49 per month had a colonoscopy from 2016 to 2018. That figure increased to 16,534 per month from 2021 to 2023—a nearly tenfold increase. “These trends suggest that guideline adoption is translating into action at the system level—a positive sign that expanded eligibility and coordinated implementation are helping close longstanding screening gaps,” Alyssa H. Harris, a study author and a researcher at the health care performance improvement company Vizient, told MedPage Today.

The post November 7: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

Many With History of Polyps Skip Follow-Up After At-home Screening

Screening guidelines advise that people who have any polyps removed during a colonoscopy continue screening with colonoscopies in the future. Although guidelines don’t go so far as to recommend screening with newer stool-based tests, such as at-home fecal immunochemical test (FIT), many people use at-home tests to detect signs of colorectal cancer. To examine screening habits after colonoscopy and the use of FIT, researchers reviewed medical records from the Veterans Health Administration for 4.8 million people who got a colonoscopy between 2000 and 2024, Medscape reported. The study, presented at the 2025 American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) Annual Scientific Meeting, showed that about 11% of people used FIT within 10 years of their colonoscopy, nearly half of whom had polyps removed at their initial colonoscopy. Only 50.4% of people who had polyps removed on a colonoscopy and had a subsequent positive FIT result followed up with a colonoscopy suggesting that even those who have higher risk of developing colorectal cancer do not follow up to receive a colonoscopy, which can both find and remove polyps. Among people who had a previous colonoscopy that did not remove any polyps, the rate of follow-up after a positive FIT result was 49.3%. “The main message that needs to get out to people who are undergoing stool-based screening is that the stool test is only the first part of the screening process, and if it’s positive, a follow-up colonoscopy must be performed. Otherwise, the stool-based test is of no value,” William D. Chey, a gastroenterologist at University of Michigan Health in Ann Arbor, said in Medscape.

Early-onset Cancer Rate Rises in Corn Belt

Young adults in states that make up the nation’s Corn Belt—Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and Nebraska—are getting cancer at rates that are rising faster than in the rest of the country, according to a report in the Washington Post. In 1999, cancer diagnoses in these six states were in line with the rest of the country. But, according to an analysis by the Post, their trajectory began to diverge soon after. By 2022, the region’s rate of cancer in young adults was 5% higher than the national average for young adults. Around 2000, Iowa ranked 18th among U.S. states for cancer in adults under 50. Today, it ranks fifth. “What’s driving these rates is what is on everyone’s mind, including mine, all the time,” said Mary Charlton, an epidemiologist and the director of the Iowa Cancer Registry, in the Post. “The complicated thing is that it’s not risk factors now. It’s our risk factors from 10, 20, 30 years ago that are causing the cancers now.” Known risk factors include elevated UV light exposure from outside work and high rates of binge drinking. But researchers are investigating other potential exposures that could increase risk, such as radon levels, nitrate pollution in groundwater from fertilizer use, and chemicals used to kill pests and weeds in commercial farming operations.

Bispecific Antibody Improves Cancer Control in Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

A bispecific antibody given with chemotherapy extended how long some people with advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) lived without their cancer progressing, according to clinical trial results presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2025 last week in Berlin. According to the findings, which were also published in the Lancet, people who received chemotherapy plus ivonescimab, a bispecific antibody that targets two proteins in cancer cells, lived about 11 months without cancer progression, while those who received an immune checkpoint inhibitor, called Tevimbra (tislelizumab) plus chemotherapy lived nearly 7 months without disease progression, Oncology News Central reported. People given ivonescimab and chemotherapy had more higher-grade side effects that required medical attention, which were seen in 63.9% of people given ivonescimab and 54.3% of people given Tevimbra. While presenting the findings at ESMO Congress 2025, Shun Lu, the chief of Shanghai Lung Cancer Center at the Shanghai Chest Hospital in China, said the study could lead to a new standard of care. An invited discussant for the study, Myung-Ju Ahn, a hematologist-oncologist at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea, noted the findings raised the bar, but cautioned that it is still too early to know if the bispecific antibody can help people live longer. “It represents an important first step and a new benchmark in the management of squamous non-small cell lung cancer, but we have several unanswered questions,” Ahn said, in the Oncology News Central report.

The post October 31: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

Cancer cells with a mutation on the EGFR gene produce abnormally high amounts of the EGFR protein, which signals the cells to grow and multiply uncontrollably. Tagrisso blocks the protein on cancer cells and can stop cancer from growing. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) originally approved Tagrisso for EGFR-positive NSCLC in 2015 and approved Tagrisso on its own as the first treatment for people with metastatic disease in 2018.

In the phase III FLAURA2 trial, 557 people with advanced EGFR-positive NSCLC received either Tagrisso with chemotherapy or Tagrisso alone. Both Tagrisso and platinum-based chemotherapy are standard treatments for advanced EGFR-positive NSCLC.

In findings published Oct. 17, 2025, in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Tagrisso and chemotherapy combination resulted in longer median overall survival, the length of time people in the study lived after starting treatment. The overall survival in the combination group was 47.5 months versus 37.6 months for the group receiving Tagrisso alone.

Researchers had already found that the Tagrisso-chemotherapy combination extended how long people on the treatment went before the cancer progressed based on an earlier analysis of this trial but were enthused by the new findings that confirmed it also extended life. “A median overall survival of almost four years is the longest ever seen in a phase III clinical trial in this subset of patients,” says Pasi A. Jänne, the study’s lead author and a medical oncologist and director of the Chen-Huang Center for EGFR Mutant Lung Cancers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “Knowing that Tagrisso plus chemotherapy also improves overall survival makes the findings even more robust,” Jänne says.

In the new study, 70% of the patients in the Tagrisso plus chemotherapy group experienced treatment side effects that required medical attention compared with 34% of the patients in the Tagrisso-only group. The most common side effects people experienced were diarrhea, nausea, decreased appetite, constipation, rash, fatigue and vomiting and were usually minor. Most of the higher-grade side effects that required medical intervention were low blood cell levels, such as anemia and neutropenia. People taking Tagrisso should also be monitored for certain serious side effects, including interstitial lung disease or pneumonitis, heart failure, and eye and skin problems that require immediate attention.

“It’s ironic that chemotherapy is being added back to a targeted therapy, which adds back some of the side effects of chemotherapy, but for the most part, it’s a win,” says Roy S. Herbst, a medical oncologist and the deputy director of the Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Connecticut, who was not involved in the research. “A median overall survival improvement of 10 months makes Tagrisso plus chemotherapy a new standard of care.”

The combination regimen adds to the first-line treatment options, such as the targeted FDA-approved combination therapy of Rybrevant (amivantamab) and Lazcluze (lazertinib), available to patients with advanced EGFR-positive NSCLC.

Discuss the treatment options for advanced EGFR-positive NSCLC and how they fit with your overall health with your doctor. People should consider the balance of potential benefits compared with the side effects, the logistics of undergoing treatment, and prognostic factors. For example, “the combination of Tagrisso and chemotherapy may be particularly beneficial for patients with EGFR-positive advanced NSCLC that has spread to the central nervous system,” Jänne says. “Chemotherapy added to Tagrisso improves overall survival in patients with and without known baseline brain metastases, but it appears to be greater in patients with baseline brain as well as liver and brain metastases. For these patients, we would want to think about this combination approach.” The three-year overall survival for people with metastases in the central nervous system was 57% for people given the combination and 40% in people given Tagrisso alone.

It’s important to weigh the pros and cons of each treatment and factor in what’s most important to you. People who can’t tolerate chemotherapy may opt for Tagrisso alone, which involves simply taking a daily pill. “It’s tough when you have multiple options, trying to figure out which is the right one for each individual patient, but treatment options are exciting. It’s a good problem to have,” Jänne says.

The post Treatment Combination Improves Survival in EGFR-positive Lung Cancer appeared first on Cancer Today.

Some COVID-19 Vaccines May Strengthen Immunotherapy’s Effectiveness

In addition to protecting people from infection, mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination may also improve treatment responses in people with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanoma who are given immune checkpoint inhibitors. Researchers presented findings from a preliminary study at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2025 in Berlin, which were also published in Nature. The study examined records from people treated with immunotherapy for stage III or IV NSCLC or metastatic melanoma, MedPage Today reported. People with NSCLC who were vaccinated within 100 days of starting immunotherapy were more likely to live three years after treatment: Overall survival was 55.8% for those who got an mRNA vaccine compared with 30.6% among those who did not. People treated for metastatic melanoma had a similar difference in survival, with a three-year overall survival of 67.5% among those given an mRNA vaccine compared with 44.1% in those who did not get one. COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA give human cells instructions to create the spike protein associated with the virus, which can train the immune system to recognize this key feature and stop future infections. Although it didn’t matter what brand of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine people received, it was the mRNA itself that provided this effect, as the flu or pneumonia vaccine did not impact survival, Medscape reported. “What it shows is that mRNA medicines are continuing to surprise us in how beneficial they can be to human health,” Jeff Coller, an mRNA researcher at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, who wasn’t a researcher on the study, told the Associated Press.

Padcev Plus Keytruda Improves Survival and Response in Muscle-invasive Bladder Cancer

Research presented at the ESMO Congress 2025 suggests that an antibody-drug conjugate and an immune checkpoint inhibitor given before and after surgery can improve survival in people with muscle-invasive bladder cancer who are not eligible for cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Padcev (enfortumab vedotin) plus Keytruda (pembrolizumab) elicited a 60% improvement in the risk of recurrence or symptoms from the disease and a 50% reduction in the risk for death. All of the people in this phase III trial underwent surgery, but 170 received Padcev plus Keytruda before the procedure and 174 did not, Oncology News Central reported. More than half of the people who received the combination prior to surgery had no remaining signs of cancer. Jonathan E. Rosenberg, a genitourinary medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, who spoke as an invited discussant at the event, said the treatment combination brought dramatic and major benefits to patients. “We are now entering a new era in the treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer,” Rosenberg said.

Verzenio With Endocrine Therapy Improves Survival in High-risk Early Breast Cancer

Adding two years of Verzenio (abemaciclib) to endocrine therapy improved survival compared with endocrine therapy alone in hormone receptor-positive early-stage breast cancer found to be at high risk for recurrence. Research, presented at the ESMO Congress 2025 and simultaneously published in Annals of Oncology, included people with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, early-stage breast cancer with features that suggested a high risk of recurrence, including signs of cancer found in nearby lymph nodes. Researchers assigned 2,808 people to receive Verzenio, a CDK4/6 inhibitor, alongside endocrine therapy for the first two years, whereas 2,829 people received endocrine therapy alone. Everyone in the trial received endocrine therapy for at least five years, a regimen commonly given after breast cancer treatment to prevent the cancer from coming back. Seven years after starting endocrine therapy, 86.8% of people in the Verzenio group were alive compared with 85% of those in the endocrine therapy alone group. This represented a 16% reduction in the risk for death in the Verzenio group, MedPage Today reported. At seven years, 77.4% of people assigned Verzenio plus endocrine therapy had gone without a cancer recurrence or a new invasive cancer compared with 70.9% with endocrine therapy alone. Researchers observed a similar trend for survival without cancer spreading to distant parts of the body, which was 80% in people given Verzenio compared with 74.9% in the endocrine therapy group. Though CDK4/6 inhibitors are widely used to treat metastatic hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, some have recently been approved for use in early-stage breast cancer based on research that found they can lower the risk of cancer returning. “This is the first targeted therapy that we’ve had that has improved overall survival in high-risk, hormone receptor-positive patients,” Joyce O’Shaughnessy, a medical oncologist at Baylor Scott & White Health in Dallas and co-investigator of the trial, told MedPage Today.

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Patients Lose Valuable Time on Prior Authorizations

Three studies presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Quality Care Symposium held in Chicago measured the time burden of prior authorization, which is health insurance companies’ requirement to review and approve treatment before a patient can receive it. In one survey, radiation oncologists noted an increase in the need for prior authorizations in last three years, which led to treatment delays, Medscape Medical News reported. In another analysis, researchers surveyed 1,201 adults with cancer who received treatment. Nearly 3 in 4 needed at least one prior authorization for cancer treatment between 2022 and 2024. Nearly all of those who needed prior authorization reported having to do the process numerous times. Half of the patients who had to get prior authorization reported that they or their family members were responsible for the process. Of those, 50% spent up to eight hours on their most recent prior authorization issue, while 12% spent 40 hours or more. “This study makes clear what many of us in oncology have suspected: Prior authorization isn’t just an administrative hurdle for clinicians; it’s a hidden second job for patients,” Marcin Chwistek, a palliative care physician at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia who was not involved in the study, told Medscape.

Targeted Node Biopsy Cuts Risks in Early Cervical Cancer

Sentinel lymph node biopsy, a procedure where doctors use a dye injected near the tumor and remove only the nearby lymph nodes where fluid drains, guides treatments in many early-stage cancers, including breast cancer. The targeted practice allows surgeons to remove those lymph nodes where cancer is likely to first spread and send those nodes for analysis while sparing patients from more invasive surgery to remove additional lymph nodes. A multicenter phase III clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at 838 people with early-stage cervical cancer. Researchers found that using sentinel lymph node biopsy during hysterectomy carries similar recurrence risk as full pelvic lymph node removal. After three years, 96.9% of people who received sentinel lymph node biopsy were alive and disease free, compared with 94.6% in the lymphadenectomy group. In addition, cancer-specific survival was slightly higher in the sentinel lymph node group. In the study, 5.2% of people who received sentinel lymph node biopsy had lymphedema, which is swelling that occurs, typically in the arms and legs, when lymph fluid builds up in the lymph nodes. In comparison, 19.1% of those who received full lymph node surgery developed the condition. People who had sentinel lymph node biopsy experienced fewer incidences of nerve problems and pain, as well.

Could Thymic Health Predict Immune Therapy Response?

At the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress 2025, which opens in Berlin, Germany today, researchers will present data that show the health of the thymus—a gland in the chest where T cells mature—strongly influences outcomes for cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors. The study, which will be presented this weekend, used AI-based analysis of chest CT scans to assess the thymic health of nearly 3,500 patients, ASCO Post reported. Among 1,218 people with non-small cell lung cancer, higher thymic health corresponded with a 35% lower risk of cancer progression and a 44% lower risk of death. Researchers also noted positive associations between thymic health and immunotherapy outcomes in melanoma and renal and breast cancers, indicating that the finding applies across multiple cancer types. “We think thymic health is one of the missing pillars from current cancer biomarker panels and can start bringing the patient’s immune system into clinical decision-making alongside established tumor-centered biomarkers,” Simon Bernatz, the lead author of the study and a research fellow in the AI in Medicine program at Mass General Brigham in Boston, said in a press release.

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Regimen Offers Safer Option for Some Older Multiple Myeloma Patients

A new drug regimen extended progression-free survival in older people with multiple myeloma without increasing their side effects, according to a study published in the Lancet Oncology. Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid commonly prescribed in combination with the immunomodulatory agent Revlimid (lenalidomide) for people with multiple myeloma. In recent years, doctors have also added the targeted therapy drug Darzalex (daratumumab) to this regimen, which has prolonged survival in these patients. However, the three-part combination also has increased the risk for infection and other toxicities, so oncologists sometimes omit Darzalex when treating older frail patients at high risk for side effects. In a phase III clinical trial, 295 people with multiple myeloma who were age 65 or older and frail were randomly assigned to receive either the standard treatment of Revlimid and ongoing dexamethasone or a regimen of Revlimid, Darzalex and just two cycles of dexamethasone, MedPage Today reported. People who received the new treatment had a median progression-free survival of 53.4 months, compared with 22.5 months for those who received standard care. Both groups had similar rates of side effects, including infection. The trial “supports the integration of a dexamethasone-sparing regimen into clinical practice for older patients with frailty and newly diagnosed multiple myeloma,” the study authors wrote.

Immunotherapy Maintenance Treatment Delays Skin Cancer Recurrence

The Food and Drug Administration approved the immunotherapy drug Libtayo (cemiplimab) as a post-surgery treatment for people with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC), a type of skin cancer, who have a high risk for recurrence. Patients can take Libtayo for 48 weeks after surgery or until cancer recurrence. The approval was based on results of a phase III clinical trial in which 415 people received either Libtayo or a placebo after having surgery and radiation for CSCC, Oncology News Central reported. After two years, 87.1% of people who received Libtayo were alive without disease, compared with 64.1% of those who received a placebo, according to results published May 31, 2025, in the New England Journal of Medicine. Before this approval, only people with advanced CSCC who were ineligible for surgery or radiation could receive immunotherapy, according to Vishal A. Patel, a trial investigator and a cutaneous oncologist at GW Cancer Center in Washington, D.C. Among those who had surgery, people whose cancer showed high-risk features had limited options to reduce their risk for recurrence, according to Patel. “As the first and only immunotherapy approved in the adjuvant setting, Libtayo represents a practice-changing opportunity for this patient population, backed by compelling data showcasing its ability to significantly improve disease-free survival,” Patel said in a press release.

Medicaid Expansion Linked to Improved Cancer Survival in Rural Areas

People with cancer living in rural areas of states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act had better survival outcomes than similar people in states without expanded coverage, according to a study published in Cancer Discovery. In the study, researchers analyzed cancer registry data for people diagnosed with cancer between 2007 and 2008 or 2014 and 2015 in 26 states that had expanded Medicaid coverage and 12 states that had not expanded coverage as of 2020. In total, 1.42 million cancer cases were included in the analysis. Between the two time periods, five-year cancer-specific survival increased by about 2 percentage points in both expansion and non-expansion states. However, researchers observed a significant difference when looking at outcomes for people in rural communities. People with cancer living in rural areas of Medicaid expansion states had their likelihood of living for five years improve by 2.55 percentage points more than those living in rural areas in non-expansion states. The Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2014, allowed states to expand Medicaid eligibility to people with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, MedPage Today reported. To date, 40 states have expanded Medicaid eligibility. Previous research found expanded Medicaid eligibility is associated with better insurance coverage, increased cancer screenings and more early-stage diagnoses, MedPage Today reported. “Insurance coverage plays a crucial role in enhancing cancer outcomes by enabling timely access to diagnostic and treatment services,” Elizabeth J. Schafer, a study author and a cancer prevention researcher with the American Cancer Society, told MedPage Today.

The post October 10: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

HPV Vaccination Uptake Also Linked to Benefits in the Unvaccinated

Since the first human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine became available in 2006, the rate of HPV infections, which can cause several cancers, including cervical, anal and throat cancer, has declined among women and men in the U.S. A recent analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics, suggests the HPV vaccination has also reduced infection rates in unvaccinated girls and women. For the study, researchers assessed the vaccination status and infection rates of 2,335 adolescent girls and young women ages 13 to 26 who had some history of sexual activity and took part in regional surveillance studies between 2006 and 2023. The study looked at infections by HPV type, including the most carcinogenic types: HPV-16 and HPV-18. The earliest versions of the vaccine addressed these strains. Over the course of the study, the proportion of vaccinated girls and women who tested positive for HPV-16 or HPV-18 dropped 98.4%, MedPage Today reported. In addition, infection rates of unvaccinated girls and women for these same HPV types fell 75.7% in the same time period. “High HPV vaccination rates achieved during adolescence may have the capability to decrease infection, precancers, and new cancer diagnoses for a much larger group of beneficiaries,” wrote physician Rachel Katzenellenbogen, and epidemiologist Teresa Imburgia, both of Indiana University in Indianapolis, in an editorial published in JAMA Pediatrics. However, disruptions to people’s ability to get health care and vaccine hesitancy could undermine this progress, study author Jessica Kahn, director of the Block Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, told MedPage Today. “We do have that potential to actually eliminate cervical cancer in our lifetimes,” Kahn said. “It depends on vaccine access and uptake being high.”

Radiation Lowers Recurrence in Locally Advanced Bladder Cancer

Radiation therapy reduced the risk of local recurrence when added to treatment for muscle-invasive bladder cancer, according to a study presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) meeting. The study included 153 people with high-risk muscle-invasive bladder cancer who had surgery to remove their bladder and chemotherapy. Half the patients in the trial received radiation therapy while the rest were observed without getting radiation. In the study, 87.1% of patients who received radiation were alive without local or regional recurrence compared with 76% in the observation group, Oncology News Central reported. “The use of adjuvant radiotherapy for localized bladder cancer is an age-old question that does not have an answer,” said Chad Tang, a radiation oncologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who discussed the findings at an ASTRO media briefing. “Overall, BART [Bladder Adjuvant Radiotherapy] is an important beginning to the integration of radiation in a setting where we had very little clear data until now,” Tang said. The addition of radiation came with increased reports of moderate diarrhea and inflammation of the small intestine or rectum, but rates of severe toxicities were similar between the two groups, according to principal investigator Vedang Murthy, a radiation oncologist at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, India, who presented the findings at the conference. The study was conducted in India and did not include people treated with immunotherapy. Tang said he was curious to see data on how radiation affects outcomes in people receiving immunotherapy as part of their bladder cancer treatment, MedPage Today reported.

Some Increases in Early-onset Cancer May Be Due to Better Detection

Recent reports about rising cancer rates in younger adults has raised speculation about potential modern causes, including diets and environmental changes. A recent study questions whether the increases are more a reflection of the improved ability to find cancer. The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, examined eight cancer types with the fastest growth in early-onset diagnoses. Rates of thyroid, anal, kidney, small intestine, colorectal, pancreas and endometrial cancer, and multiple myeloma have doubled in people under the age of 50 between 1992 and 2022. The mortality rate across those cancers remained consistent throughout, at 5.9 deaths per 100,000 people, indicating that the rise in cases may not reflect a change in biology but a change in our ability to detect cancers, according to the researchers. “There really isn’t much more cancer out there,” study author H. Gilbert Welch, a physician and researcher at the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Mass General Brigham hospital, told NBC News. “We’re just finding stuff that’s always been there.” The researchers contended that mortality rates among different cancer types would change if there were a true increase in cases. Meanwhile, greater awareness, expanded screening in younger people and better tests may be turning up cases that would have been missed in the past. Ahmed Jemal, senior vice president for surveillance, prevention and health services research at the American Cancer Society, rebutted the idea that rising incidence rates can be dismissed as a product of more screening. But Jemal said that treating cancers that aren’t dangerous creates expenses, anxieties and other burdens for people who are diagnosed. The study authors argued that raising alarms about cancer in young adults could lead to more tests in otherwise healthy people. “The epidemic narrative not only exaggerates the problem, but it may also exacerbate it,” the authors wrote. “While more testing is often seen as the solution to an epidemic, it can just as easily be the cause.”

The post October 3: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

A magazine editor and journalist, Gluck wrote about his experiences with cancer for New York Magazine in 2007. Back then, he brushed off suggestions to write a book. However, in 2023, as he marked 20 years from his diagnosis, he returned to the idea. “I realized the 20th anniversary would give me a nice ending point,” says Gluck. “I’m not cured, and I’m not dead. Those are the two most natural endpoints, but I don’t have either one of those at my disposal. So I realized the anniversary would give me an ending, artificial in some sense, but a good place to stop the story, at least.”

Jonathan Gluck Photo by Jacob Moscovitch

An Exercise in Uncertainty, which was published in June 2025, covers the long arc of Gluck’s time in and out of treatment and includes chapters exploring the history of different therapies that have improved survival in multiple myeloma. He also chronicles the difficulty of living with prolonged uncertainty that comes with living for decades with an incurable cancer. (Gluck is currently in remission after receiving CAR-T cell therapy in 2023.) He spoke to Cancer Today about the lessons he has learned.

CT: What has it been like living with this uncertainty, and what ways have you found to cope with it?

GLUCK: I did quite a bit of research on this subject, and it was fascinating. People hate uncertainty. Humans are not good at tolerating it, and it’s really upsetting to us.

Apparently, there aren’t great ways of dealing with it. Some of the researchers I spoke to talked about things that can help, things like simple distractions, trying not to get in a mental loop where you’re thinking nonstop about all the bad things that can happen, and trying to do things that bring you into the zone or the flow state.

One of the researchers spoke about “predemption,” or preemptive thinking about what might be redeeming about what is happening to you. If you were waiting for test results, you might imagine: If the worst were to happen, what good might come of that? Some of the cancer survivors and patients talked about how their experience provided an opportunity to show their children resilience or teach their children about optimism.

CT: Your doctors recommended starting with less intense therapies and holding off on chemotherapy. Was it difficult as a patient to accept the idea of waiting to treat the cancer?

GLUCK: I’ve been very fortunate to be treated by some extremely brilliant and caring doctors. At the very beginning, when one of my doctors said we’re just going to go slow here, and we’re going to start with this relatively isolated treatment, my initial thought was, “No! I want you to go full force. I want this stuff out of me. I don’t want to have one cell’s worth of cancer in my body.”

The doctor explained, of course, why that was a terrible idea. He really saw around the corner and down the road to how important it was going to be to treat me with the minimal effective treatment at each stage so he could keep as many arrows in his quiver, so to speak, with the hope that I could live as many years as possible and with as high a quality of life as possible. Once I saw how I was able, especially in the earlier years, to more or less go back to my normal life pretty quickly, I started to see the wisdom in that.

CT: What role has research played in your treatment over the years?

GLUCK: It’s almost a miracle, and I’ve been incredibly fortunate, timing wise.

When I was first diagnosed, the first oncologist I saw told me something to the effect of, “Obviously I’m sure you’re not feeling terribly lucky,” but he said there is some good news in the sense that there are a lot of new drugs in the pipeline for this cancer. I thought he was just trying to be positive and give me a ray of hope, but it turned out he was entirely correct.

Many treatments have been developed for multiple myeloma. Some of them were approved less than a year prior to my needing them. The timing was almost uncanny.

I’ve been the beneficiary of an incredible amount of research and brilliant scientists who have developed these mind-blowingly futuristic kinds of treatments, and plain and simple, I wouldn’t be here without them.

CT: Your doctors recommended you stop high-impact activities like running, after radiation treatment. What other ways did you find to get physical activity?

GLUCK: I took up swimming. I ride the stationary bike in the gym, and I did yoga for a while. All of those things turned out to be fun in their own right.

I also took up fly fishing, a little bit for the physical activity but really for the mental peace of mind it offers me. I find—and research bears this out as I learned through my reporting—anything you can do that is deeply absorbing, that brings you into the zone or the flow state, can crowd out all your other thoughts. Just doing something that requires all your attention is really therapeutic.

So I became a very passionate fly fisherman. It’s a sport that requires all of your attention. You’re also often in a beautiful place, and that alone is a nice distraction and brings on positive feelings.

I’m not a big fan of the term self-care—it’s an overused phrase these days—but I deeply believe that if you’re facing a physical challenge as serious as cancer, you’ve got to look for every opportunity you can to maximize your happiness and your physical and mental well-being. Just because one door closes that way doesn’t mean another door can’t open. I’m not terrific at it, but I’ve tried, to the best of my ability, to find those new doors.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The post Lessons From 20 Years Living With Cancer appeared first on Cancer Today.

Trial to Assess Whether AI-assisted Mammography Improves Detection

Researchers will be conducting a large-scale clinical trial at seven sites across the United States to measure the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in improving mammograms. The study comes at a time when more breast imaging centers are integrating AI-assisted screening mammography, STAT reported. Trials in Europe found using AI programs to assist radiologists may improve the ability to identify breast cancer tumors. But these findings cannot be generalized to the U.S. due to differences in imaging practices. Mammograms in the U.S. are read by a single radiologist, but two radiologists complete image reviews in Europe. This trial will assess outcomes in real people instead of using “artificial settings,” which has been used as an endpoint in assessing AI systems. “This is one of the first trials that can help us measure the clinical impact of AI solutions when deployed at scale,” said Sanjay Aneja, a radiation oncologist at Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Connecticut. “We don’t really know if proposed solutions can actually improve the lives of patients or are just part of a growing AI fad that has permeated a number of industries.” Results from the study, which will be conducted over two years, will not be ready until at least 2028, STAT reported.

Vitamin B12 May Reduce Risk for Severe Hand-foot Syndrome

Women with early-stage breast cancer who took oral vitamin B12 supplements while taking a chemotherapy called capecitabine had lower risk of developing severe hand-foot syndrome than those who didn’t take the supplement, according to findings from a phase III trial published in the BMJ. Hand-foot syndrome, which can present as painful swelling, redness or tingling on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, is a side effect of certain cancer drugs. The trial included 234 women with HER2-negative early-stage breast cancer who were scheduled to take capecitabine. Half the patients took oral methylcobalamin, a form of B12, while the other half took a placebo, Medscape reported. Physicians usually assess the severity of side effects using a grading scale. With grade 2 hand-foot syndrome, people may have blisters, skin peeling and bleeding, and grade 3 usually entails severe pain and difficulty doing everyday tasks. In the study, grade 2 or higher hand-foot syndrome occurred in 14.5% of people in the B12 group vs. 29.1% in the placebo group. In addition, B12 did not increase toxicity or cause treatment-specific side effects. “Even though [vitamin B12] didn’t eliminate hand-foot syndrome, reducing the severity of grade 2 and up is really clinically meaningful,” Eleonora Teplinsky, a medical oncologist at Valley-Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Care in Paramus, New Jersey, who was not involved in the study, told Medscape.

Could Modern-day Exposures Be Increasing Cancer in Young People?

Scientists are examining ways that modern life could be contributing to increasing rates of early-onset cancers in people under 50, according to an article from the Washington Post. Researchers are examining the role of various modern-day environmental exposures, including the increase in microplastics, and “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. “We’ve changed what we’re exposed to considerably in the past few decades,” said Gary Patti, a biochemist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Scientists are also looking at other contributors, including the role of ultra-processed foods, and the impact of artificial light, which can disrupt the circadian rhythm. John Ioannidis, who frequently assesses reliability of scientific studies as a researcher at Stanford University in California, added that a note of caution when interpreting findings, which often are based on epidemiological studies that show correlations using large datasets of people. These studies do not show direct causation. “We should not panic and think everything new we live with is toxic,” Ioannidis told the Post.

The post September 26: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

In his keynote address at the opening session, Robert Winn, director of VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center in Richmond, Virginia, reminded attendees of the resilience of disparities researchers through the history of medicine. Winn encouraged attendees to celebrate and share the gains researchers have already made in improving outcomes and reducing health disparities. Often, he said, people don’t hear as much about these successes as they do about how much work still needs to be done. Winn said he speaks to people outside the medical community who feel a lung cancer diagnosis is hopeless because they are unaware of treatment advances and rising survival rates in the disease.

The Need for Community

As a patient advocate and Hodgkin lymphoma survivor, Ysabel Duron has years of experience pressing researchers and policymakers to engage with communities and advocates to improve care.

Ysabel Duron, a Hodgkin lymphoma survivor and the founder of the Latino Cancer Institute, delivers the patient advocate keynote address during the opening session of the 18th American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held Sept. 18 to 21, 2025, in Baltimore. Photo © AACR/Vera LaMarche

When former President Joe Biden called for more research funding as part of his Cancer Moonshot initiative, Duron told representatives of government agencies that research alone was not enough to reduce cancer deaths, she recalled. “You need community voices at the table, community health workers in the street, and plenty of investment in community to get the job done,” Duron said during the patient advocate keynote address at the opening session.

Duron has worked to bridge the gap in various ways, including through efforts to build a Spanish-language website for the All of Us research program to reach people who don’t speak English as their first language. She also stresses the importance of disaggregating information. For example, many datasets categorize individuals by race instead of ethnicity, which means Latinos are often characterized as “white.” Thus, researchers cannot measure the potential differences in cancer incidence or outcomes of these groups.

Reducing Disparities in Real-world Practice

John M. Carethers, a gastroenterologist at UC San Diego Health in California who provided the distinguished science lecture during the opening session, discussed ways to improve access to colorectal cancer screening to decrease disparities in diagnosis and mortality.

John M. Carethers, a gastroenterologist at UC San Diego Health in California, delivers the distinguished science lecture during the opening session of the 18th American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held Sept. 18 to 21, 2025, in Baltimore. Photo © AACR/Vera LaMarche

One promising development is the increased adoption of stool- and blood-based screening tests. Colonoscopy is the most common screening method for colorectal cancer in the U.S. However, colonoscopies require a patient to fast for the day and to undergo bowel preparation and sedation. Blood draws can be done in just a few minutes, and samples for stool-based tests can be collected at home and mailed in. Studies are currently exploring how to use these new methods to best increase screening.

Some findings Carethers discussed explored the potential of patient navigation to promote screening and help patients find the appropriate care after a positive result. He mentioned a Delaware program in which nurse navigators and care coordinators promoted cancer screening and helped patients connect with appropriate follow-up care at hospitals between 2002 and 2009. During that period, screening uptake increased across the board, and gaps in screening between Black people and white people nearly disappeared. Before the program launched in 2002, only 47.8% of Black people in the state underwent screening, but by 2009, that figure had risen to 74%, equaling the screening proportion for white Delaware residents. Among Black people diagnosed with colorectal cancer in the state, the percentage of those diagnosed with regional or advanced colorectal cancer dropped, and the share of early-stage diagnoses increased. The colorectal cancer mortality rate in Black people declined by 42% between 2002 and 2009 and was nearly the same as the rate in white residents.

Persevering Through Adversity

Disparities research, Winn pointed out, is not small and is not new. In fact, the work in Delaware incorporates patient navigation, a concept first pioneered by Black physician Harold Freeman in the 1990s. Winn discussed the history of disparities research, starting with W.E.B. DuBois, who studied the conditions of Black people living in Philadelphia in the 1890s. He highlighted large epidemiological studies in the late 1960s that set out to measure mortality and health differences between different classes. He finished with Freeman’s work to help reduce high breast cancer death rates among poor Black women in Harlem.

This work and the efforts of many other scientists have often been done under tremendous adversity. Winn cited Gladys West, whose contributions laid the groundwork for GPS technology, and Percy Julian, a chemist whose work synthesizing plant chemicals made pain medications more affordable and widely available. Both Black researchers worked in the era of widespread segregation and discrimination that could have stopped them from making these contributions. West, Julian and many others give researchers a playbook for how to handle today’s challenges, Winn said, and serve as a reminder that “what we have to do as scientists and the gift we have to give to the world is the best science that we can do.”

The post The Enduring Importance of Cancer Disparities Research appeared first on Cancer Today.

Progress in Cancer Research Sets Stage for Sustained Funding Push in D.C.

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) released the 15th annual AACR Cancer Progress Report Sept. 17. While highlighting key cancer research milestones in general, the report honed in on notable treatment advances for people with blood cancer. For example, between 1991 and 2023, non-Hodgkin lymphoma mortality rates declined by 43%, and multiple myeloma mortality rates declined by more than 31%—even as incidence of these cancers rose, Healio reported. “Progress against blood cancer has led to a revolution in precision cancer medicine,” AACR President Lillian L. Siu, a medical oncologist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, said during a media briefing in Washington, D.C., on the day the report was released. “The [latest AACR Cancer Progress Report] is not only a record of how far we have come but also a reminder of how much remains at stake,” Siu said. The AACR Cancer Progress Report also shares stories from cancer survivors, including Richard Schlueter, whose treatment for head and neck cancer was delayed because of budget cuts at the National Institutes of Health. On Sept. 18, he and other patient advocates met with members of Congress to impress on them the importance of funding medical research as part of the 13th annual Rally for Medical Research Hill Day. (The AACR publishes Cancer Today and is a founding organizer and lead sponsor of the Rally for Medical Research.)

Low-dose Aspirin Fends Off Colorectal Cancer After Surgery

Some people who take a low-dose aspirin after colorectal cancer surgery may be able to reduce their risk of recurrence, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.Researchers looked at 1,103 people with early-stage or locally advanced colorectal cancer that had PI3K pathway alterations. The study divided participants into two groups: people whose tumors had PIK3CA mutations and those who had other related mutations. In both groups, 7.7% of people who took aspirin had a recurrence after three years. In those who received a placebo, 14.1% of people whose cancer had PIK3CA mutations had a recurrence, and 16.8% of people whose cancer had other mutations had a recurrence. These results reinforce the importance of tumor testing for all people with colorectal cancer, Anna Martling, a colorectal cancer surgeon at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who led the trial, told the Guardian. “I think this will change clinical practice,” Martling said. “If you had these mutations, the risk of the cancer coming back was lowered by more than 50%. It is a huge effect.”

Blood Tests That Screen for Many Cancers Still Lack Evidence of Benefit

Evidence is sparse when it comes to assessing the value of multi-cancer early detection (MCED) tests, which are blood tests designed to detect multiple cancers in people who do not have any symptoms. A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reviewed 20 different controlled trials that measured the accuracy of 19 MCED tests and found widely different results. None of the studies measured the impact of screening with MCED tests on cancer detection, mortality or quality of life, MedPage Today reported. The Food and Drug Administration has not approved any MCED tests. However, these tests, including OneTest and Galleri, are commercially available as lab tests that can be ordered by physicians. “This lack of data should give pause to any patient or clinician ready to embrace [MCED] tests today,” David S. Weinberg, a gastroenterologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, wrote in an accompanying editorial in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Weinberg wrote that he believes the research will improve with time, MedPage Today reported.

The post September 19: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

In a study published June 3, 2025, in Public Health Nutrition, researchers used responses to the Health Information National Trends Survey to assess the eating habits and knowledge about dietary risk factors of cancer survivors and people with no cancer history. They found that 82% of cancer survivors did not meet the American Cancer Society (ACS) dietary recommendations to eat about 2 cups of fruit a day. Additionally, 75% of people didn’t get the recommended 2 to 3 cups of vegetables each day. These were the same proportions seen among people with no history of cancer.

“This is a big issue, that we do have a high percent of people—not only cancer survivors, but all other people—who cannot meet the dietary guideline,” says study author Yunxia Lu, an epidemiologist focused on cancer prevention at the University of California, Irvine. Lu notes that other studies support these findings.

These findings highlight a greater need for diet education, especially for cancer survivors, says Beth Beckett, an oncology dietitian at Nassif Community Cancer Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who was not involved in the study.

“People know that fruits and vegetables are really healthy and important for their health, but the practicality of it, the follow-through, is lacking,” Beckett says.

Awareness of Dietary Effects on Recurrence Risk

Both cancer survivors and people with no cancer history were equally aware that a healthy diet can decrease cancer recurrence, and researchers found the groups did not significantly differ in awareness of how fruit and vegetables, fiber, sugar-sweetened beverages and alcohol intake can impact that risk.

Although Beckett was hoping to see cancer survivors had better dietary patterns, she wasn’t shocked by the findings. “I’m surprised when I meet with people one-on-one, some of them really don’t understand the association between diet and cancer recurrence.”

A growing body of research shows diet correlates with other benefits for people with various types of cancer.

“There are quite a few studies that show that when people don’t follow the dietary guidelines, they have an increased risk of mortality, especially in colorectal cancer, and there’s some evidence for breast cancer,” Lu says. Also, studies show that people with cancer who follow dietary recommendations are less likely to have a recurrence, she says.

Getting Support for Lifestyle Changes

The current time-strapped environment in oncology offices may leave little opportunity for nutritional counseling.

“When the patient sees the doctor, most of the clinicians are talking more about the measurement of a cancer-related symptom or treatment, but they may deliver very limited guidance on dietary information,” Lu says. “One reason is that those health care providers may not feel prepared or they have limited training in nutrition.”

Cancer survivors may want to make some changes, but they don’t know where to start.

“People know that a healthy diet is related with cancer prevention, but [health care providers] don’t emphasize much about the long-term outcomes in cancer survivors,” Lu says.

Available Resources for Cancer Survivors

Oncology dietitians and nutritionists often help patients who are being treated for cancer with specific symptoms, such as nausea and vomiting, appetite loss and weight loss, and taste or smell changes. But patients may need to ask for this kind of support once they have finished treatment.

“A lot of our job is focused on malnutrition,” Beckett says. “We’re seeing head and neck cancer patients with feeding tubes, and we’re seeing people that are losing large amounts of weight during treatment. While most cancer centers have at least one dietitian, a lot of times, there aren’t enough to do more survivorship education.”

Cancer survivors who don’t receive a referral after treatment can seek out the help of dietitians. “We’re the ones who would be able to take the time and have the training to be able to do that counseling.”

In addition, some cancer centers include survivorship programs that provide training in dietary behaviors, cooking classes and other learning opportunities. Online, the ACS and the American Institute for Cancer Research have resources that focus on diet, exercise and weight management. Beckett says she also directs survivors to other recipe sites that may not be cancer specific but provide easy instructions for nutritious meals. “The key is to make it easy for people, and not to be too complicated,” she says

The post Most Cancer Survivors Don’t Meet Healthy Diet Goals appeared first on Cancer Today.

Treatment Combo Improves Survival in EGFR-positive NSCLC

People with EGFR-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received both the targeted therapy drug Tagrisso (osimertinib) and chemotherapy lived longer than those who took Tagrisso alone, according to a study presented at the 2025 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Barcelona, Spain. In a phase III clinical trial, 557 people with EGFR-positive locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC were randomly assigned to receive either Tagrisso and chemotherapy or Tagrisso alone. People who received the combination survived for a median of 47.5 months, compared with 37.6 in the Tagrisso-only group, Oncology News Central reported. At three years, 63% of those who received the combination were alive, compared with 51% of the single-drug group. People who received the combination experienced more toxicity from the addition of chemotherapy, but researchers said the side effects were manageable and tolerable. “These compelling overall survival results from the FLAURA2 trial confirm osimertinib plus chemotherapy as the first-line standard of care in EGFR-[mutated] advanced non-small cell lung cancer,” David Planchard, the study’s lead author and a thoracic oncologist at Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France, said during his presentation at the conference.

FDA Approves Implant That Dispenses Chemotherapy into the Bladder

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a tiny pretzel-shaped drug-delivery device that slowly releases the chemotherapy drug gemcitabine to eliminate bladder cancer tumors. The implant—named Inlexzo—has been authorized for use in people with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer that did not respond to Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), an immunotherapy used to treat bladder cancer, OncLive reported. The implant, which is inserted using a catheter, stays in the bladder and steadily dispenses gemcitabine for several weeks. Approval for the device, which previously was called TAR-200, was based on results of a phase II clinical trial published July 30, 2025, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The trial studied 85 people who received the device to treat non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer that had progressed after treatment with BCG. Participants received a new implant every three weeks for six months, followed by every three months for the next two years. Researchers found 70 of the 85 people on this treatment, or 82.4%, had their tumors disappear. “I see many patients [who] ultimately become BCG-unresponsive and often face life-altering bladder removal,” Sia Daneshmand, the trial’s principal investigator and the director of urologic oncology at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles, said in a press release. “These patients now may be ideal candidates for newly approved Inlexzo.” (Read more about an earlier clinical trial of Inlexzo in bladder cancer.)

Intense Exercise May Help Ward Off Cancer Recurrence

Working out at high intensity appears to release immune-enhancing proteins into the blood that may help prevent breast cancer recurrence, according to a study published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Research has shown physical activity can help stop cancer from returning, but scientists have been unsure about the exact mechanism behind exercise’s protective effect. In a clinical trial, 32 breast cancer survivors who did not regularly work out provided blood samples and then completed 45 minutes of either high-intensity weightlifting or high-intensity interval training on a treadmill, stationary bike or rowing machine. Afterward, researchers again drew blood from the survivors. They exposed plasma from both blood samples to breast cancer cells grown in a lab. Blood taken before physical activity had no impact on the cancer cells, while blood drawn after exercise caused cancer cells to stop growing or die, the Washington Post reported. Researchers found the blood taken after the workout had high levels of certain myokines, which are proteins that support immune function that are released when muscles contract. “Our work shows that exercise can directly influence cancer biology, suppressing tumor growth through powerful molecular signals,” Robert Newton, the study’s senior author and the deputy director of the Exercise Medicine Research Institute at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, told the Post.

The post September 12: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

A study published July 29, 2025, in Gastroenterology analyzed data on 6,068 people who received screening with Shield in a primary care setting between May 2022 and September 2024. Of the 228 people who received abnormal results and had follow-up data, only 111, or 49%, got a colonoscopy within six months. In total, just 128 people got a colonoscopy within two years.

The follow-up rates were similar to those seen in previous research. A study, published March 24, 2024, in JAMA Network Open showed just 48% of people who received abnormal results from stool-based screening tests got a colonoscopy within six months.

The effectiveness of these more convenient tests relies on patients actually doing the follow up, says gastroenterologist Folasade May, an associate director of the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity and a study author. “Both tests require patients to take action—whether it’s scheduling a colonoscopy, arranging time off work, or overcoming concerns about the procedure itself.”

The research shows that the convenience of testing as a first step doesn’t overcome barriers to follow-up, which depends “more on the patient, provider and system-level factors,” May says.

One of those system-level factors is insurance. The study found that individuals with Medicare Advantage were less likely to follow up with colonoscopy at six months compared with people who had private insurance. Medicare Advantage (also called Medicare Part C) allows people to get their Medicare coverage through private insurance providers but may require prior authorizations and may have more limited networks than traditional Medicare plans.

Blood-based and stool-based screening tests only alert patients and their doctors to signals that a person may have cancer, but study authors stressed that the follow-up colonoscopy is a necessity as it detects cancer more accurately and can find precancerous polyps, which can be removed before they progress.

A longer wait after an abnormal result can increase the risk of being diagnosed with advanced cancer, says Carol Burke, a gastroenterologist at Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, who was not involved in the study, and who stresses the importance of doctors discussing the accuracy and limitation of less invasive screening tests.

“Some screening is better than no screening,” Burke says, but there are pros and cons to stool-based and blood-based tests.

For example, the less invasive tests need to be performed more frequently, Burke says. Colonoscopy is recommended once every 10 years if nothing abnormal is detected whereas blood-based tests are currently recommended every three years, she says.

Studies show that barriers, including taking time off work, having fear and anxiety about results, or misunderstanding why follow-up is necessary, could play a role in patients not getting follow-up after receiving abnormal results.

“We also see challenges in care coordination—for example, delays in outreach or referral for colonoscopy—which can contribute to low follow-up rates,” Burke says.

Both stool-based and blood-based colorectal cancer screening tests are ordered by a medical professional, but health care providers need to stay involved, follow up and provide guidance on additional testing, May says.

“Patients should understand that screening tests—whether stool-based or blood-based—are only the first step in colorectal cancer prevention. An abnormal result doesn’t mean cancer, but it does mean further evaluation is necessary,” she adds.

The post Many People Don’t Get Colonoscopy After Receiving Abnormal Blood Tests appeared first on Cancer Today.

Prostate Cancer Rise Prompts Concerns About Screening Recommendations

Researchers are concerned that 2012 guidance to limit screening for prostate cancer may be contributing to a sharp increase in advanced prostate cancer diagnoses, the New York Times reported. A study published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians found that prostate cancer incidence rose 3% annually between 2014 and 2021, after declining 6.4% annually between 2007 and 2014. In men 55 and older, advanced prostate cancer diagnoses rose 6% each year in the later time period. In 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which is made up of medical experts who make preventive care recommendations based on available evidence, discouraged routine prostate cancer screening for healthy men. The task force noted that prostate cancer often grows slowly without causing symptoms or harm. Thus, experts looked to reduce unnecessary harm from treatment—including lasting side effects, such as incontinence and impotence. In 2018, the USPSTF updated its recommendation, suggesting that screening should be an individual decision for men 55 to 69 and should stop at 70. “The pendulum may have swung too far in one direction, where we were afraid of overtreatment,” Bill Dahut, chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society and an author on the report, told the Times, “and now we’re not finding these cancers early on, when they can be treated and are more curable, and we’re more likely to find metastatic disease that is not curable.” The USPSTF is in the process of updating the prostate cancer screening guidelines. However, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, canceled a July task force meeting slated to discuss cardiovascular disease prevention, raising uncertainty about the status of future updates.

Government Report on Alcohol and Health Risk May Be Withheld From Publication

A Health and Human Services (HHS)-commissioned report that weighed available evidence about drinking alcohol and health outcomes, including associations with increased cancer risk, may never be published in its final form. In the study, authors noted consuming alcohol has been linked to mortality in seven types of cancer and in the report observed that risks for certain types of cancer rise starting at just one drink per week. But, according to reporting in Vox that was confirmed in STAT, study authors say the Trump administration told them it has no plans to publish the final report. HHS commissioned the Alcohol Intake and Health Study in 2022 to inform updates to the government’s dietary guidelines that are scheduled to be made before the end of this year. “I think it’s a shame,” Katherine Keyes, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and a co-author of the report, told Vox. “Anyone who is a decision-making authority, you want them to have all of the information.” Recent research has brought increasing scrutiny on alcohol’s link to cancer and other diseases, even when it’s consumed at what has been considered moderate levels. In December 2022, Congress commissioned a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that found drinking moderate levels of alcohol was associated with beneficial health outcomes, though it did link moderate drinking to higher breast cancer risk. Some experts criticized the National Academies report for using criteria that ultimately excluded many studies that found harmful effects and for commissioning authors with financial ties to the alcohol industry. The federal government released the National Academies study to the public in late 2024. Researchers submitted the Alcohol Intake and Health Study for public comment in January—that initial draft is currently available online—but the government has taken no action since receiving the final draft in March. Three authors of the report told Vox that the administration does not plan to publish the report, but they hope to publish the findings in an academic journal. “People are going to get sick who might have avoided getting sick, because they might have decreased their drinking,” Priscilla Martinez, deputy scientific director of the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute and one of the co-authors, told Vox. In the STAT article, an HHS spokesperson confirmed the final draft had been provided but did not answer questions about whether the report would be released or considered in the dietary guidelines update.

Low Screening Rates Linked to Higher Cervical Cancer Incidence in U.S. Counties

U.S. counties with low cervical cancer screening rates have nearly twice the cervical cancer incidence and mortality of counties with high screening rates, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. Researchers used data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-22 database to examine the relationship between cervical cancer screening and outcomes in 1,086 counties. They focused on the 141 counties with 80% or higher screening uptake and the 70 counties with screening rates of less than 70%. The incidence of cervical cancer—which can be prevented by treating precancerous lesions identified during screening—was 83% higher in low-coverage counties than in high-coverage counties. In addition, mortality from cervical cancer was 96% higher in low-coverage counties than in high-coverage counties. Researchers also noted that low-coverage counties often had lower average incomes. All low-coverage counties had a median household income below $75,000 per year, but only about half of the high-coverage counties had median incomes less than $75,000, Healio reported. The counties also showed a marked rural-urban divide: 87.1% of low-coverage counties were in rural areas, and 84.4% of high-coverage counties were in urban areas. “We expect to see higher rates in low-screening counties, but the magnitude took us by surprise,” Trisha L. Amboree, a study author and a researcher at Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, told Healio. “That’s extremely concerning because we know that cervical cancer is mostly preventable through timely screening, early detection and treatment of precancerous lesions.”

The post September 5: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

People With Cancer Report Inconsistency Between Desired Care and Treatment Received

More people with advanced cancer, compared with those with other serious illnesses, reported that their treatments focused on longevity when their goals prioritized comfort, according to findings from a study published in Cancer. Researchers analyzed survey responses about treatment priorities from 231 people with advanced cancer and 868 people with other serious illnesses. Researchers saw some similarities among people with cancer and those with other serious illnesses, including a preference for comfort-focused care (49% and 48%, respectively) and the rate at which people died within a 24-month period (16% and 13%), MedPage Today reported. More people with cancer, compared with those with other illnesses, said they received care that prioritized extending life despite their preference for comfort-focused care (37% vs. 19%). “We need to help patients make an educated decision about what suits their personal goals and then follow that,” Manan P. Shah, a study author and a medical oncologist at UCLA Health in Los Angeles, told MedPage Today. When focused on people with cancer who preferred comfort-focused care, researchers observed no statistically significant differences in two-year mortality in the groups of patients who received life-extending care despite their wishes and those who received the comfort-focused care they preferred.

Blood Test May Detect Ovarian Cancer in Symptomatic Women

A new blood test detected ovarian cancer even at early stages in women with abdominal symptoms, according to a study published in Cancer Research Communications. This blood test uses a machine learning model to analyze lipids, proteins and other biomarkers. Researchers tested blood samples at two institutions: the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus’ Ovarian Cancer Innovations Group and the University of Manchester in England. In the first group, the blood test accurately detected 93% of cases across all stages of ovarian cancer, including those with stage I or II disease, the BBC reported. The blood test also performed strongly with the University of Manchester set, according to a press release from AOA Dx, the company developing the test. “This platform offers a great opportunity to improve the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer, potentially resulting in better patient outcomes and lower costs to the health care system,” Abigail McElhinny, chief science officer of AOA Dx, said in the release. Of note, traditional diagnostic methods for ovarian cancer include invasive procedures or less reliable markers, both of which can lead to later-stage diagnoses, according to the press release. Approximately 20% of people diagnosed with ovarian cancer are categorized as stage I or II.

Topical Treatment Helps Manage Radiation-induced Mucositis in Nasopharyngeal Cancers

The topical antibiotic mupirocin reduced mouth sores in people with nasopharyngeal cancer, according to findings from a phase III clinical trial published in JAMA Oncology. This treatment approach also improved quality of life by alleviating swallowing difficulties and oral pain in this patient population. Nasopharyngeal cancer is a type of head and neck cancer that starts in the upper part of the throat, behind the nose. Radiation to this area can lead to mucositis, which is inflammation of the digestive system that may be the result of a bacterial infection and can cause symptoms such as mouth sores. Mipirocin combats mucositis by eliminating the bacterial infection, a process called bacterial decolonization. In the study, 176 people with nasopharyngeal cancer were randomly assigned to receive either mupirocin or routine nasal and oral care, ASCO Post reported. The treatment regimen involved applying the ointment inside the nasal cavity twice daily for five days around radiation treatment, followed by a one-week break. During the study, 22.7% of people receiving mupirocin developed acute radiation oral mucositis, compared with 47.7% in the standard-of-care group. An analysis confirmed that the findings were linked to bacterial decolonization. Researchers also noted that people in the mupirocin group had less oral pain and less difficulty swallowing than those in the standard-of-care group. “While further multicenter studies are required to validate these findings and explore synergistic effects with probiotics, this trial’s results highlight the potential of microbial management in reducing radiation-related complications,” the study authors concluded.

The post August 29: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

Implant Can Help Eliminate Bladder Cancer Tumors

An implant that dispenses chemotherapy into the bladder over time eliminated cancer in more than 80% of people with high-risk bladder cancer, according to results of a phase II clinical trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The trial involved 85 people with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer whose cancer had progressed after being treated with immunotherapy. Participants received an implanted device called TAR-200, which is inserted using a catheter, HealthDay reported. While chemotherapy delivered to the bladder typically stays there for just a short time before it exits the body, the pretzel-shaped device sits in the bladder and steadily releases the chemotherapy drug gemcitabine over the course of several weeks. “The theory behind this study was that the longer the medicine sits inside the bladder, the more deeply it would penetrate the bladder and the more cancer it would destroy,” Sia Daneshmand, the study’s lead author and the director of urologic oncology at Keck Medicine of USC in Los Angeles, said in a press release. Participants received a TAR-200 implant every three weeks for six months, followed by every three months for the next two years. Researchers found 70 of the 85 participants (82.4%) had their cancer disappear. “Traditionally, these patients have had very limited treatment options,” Daneshmand said. “This new therapy is the most effective one reported to date for the most common form of bladder cancer.”

(Read more about an earlier clinical trial of TAR-200 in bladder cancer.)

Marathon Running Linked to Increased Risk for Precancerous Colon Polyps

While exercise can help prevent cancer, long-distance runners may be at increased risk for colon cancer, according to a study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in June in Chicago. In the study, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, 100 people ages 35 to 50 who ran marathons or ultramarathons—any race longer than 26.2 miles—received a colonoscopy. Researchers found 39 participants had at least one precancerous polyp, with 15 of those having an advanced adenoma, a type of lesion that has a high risk of becoming colon cancer. Those rates were much higher than researchers expected, as typically 4.5% to 6% of people in their late 40s have advanced adenomas, the New York Times reported. “You never want to give people an excuse not to exercise because, by and large, we have bigger problems from people not exercising enough,” Timothy Cannon, the study’s lead author and an oncologist at Inova Schar Cancer in Fairfax, Virginia, told the Times. “But I do believe, after what I’ve seen from my patients and what we’ve found here, that extreme exercise may increase the risk of this cancer.” Researchers theorized that marathon runners may miss signs of colon cancer, such as stomach cramps or bloody stools, because runners often experience those symptoms. Long-distance running may also deprive the colon of oxygen, a condition called ischemic colitis that usually improves on its own. One hypothesis is repeated cycles of this inflammation-related cell damage and repair can spur cancer growth. However, several experts pointed out that most young people with colon cancer are not marathon runners and noted more research is needed.

Breast Cancer Cells Use Fat Cells to Grow

Obesity has long been associated with increased risk for breast cancer. A research team has discovered one reason for this connection: breast cancer cells use the lipids from fat cells to fuel their growth. In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers examined tissue from people with triple-negative breast cancer. They found that when the cancer cells were near fat cells, the fat cells lacked lipids, which are compounds that store energy. Researchers discovered the cancer cells insert a straw-like structure, called a gap junction, into the fat cells to remove the lipids, NBC News reported. “Aggressive cancer cells can co-opt different nutrient sources to help them grow, including by stimulating fat cells in the breast to release their lipids,” Jeremy Williams, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, told NBC News. When researchers altered the genetics of the cancer cells to prevent them from forming gap junctions, the tumors no longer grew. “Knocking out a single gene impaired the formation and progression of the tumor,” Williams told NBC News. Researchers said the discovery may lead to treatments for breast and other cancers that starve cancer cells by blocking them from draining lipids from nearby fat cells.

The post August 22: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

Corticosteroids Hinder Immunotherapy Outcomes in Lung Cancer

Corticosteroids are commonly used to manage cancer symptoms. However, a study found the use of corticosteroids at the start of treatment was associated with shorter survival for people given immunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The study, published in Cancer Research Communications, analyzed the health records of 277 people with NSCLC who received immune checkpoint inhibitors between 2013 and 2023 at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, or USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles. This included 21 people who took steroids to manage conditions, such as brain metastases and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, before starting immunotherapy. Those taking steroids progressed sooner and had shorter average overall survival than those who did not receive steroids, HealthDay reported. Additionally, researchers tracked the expression of a receptor on T cells in the blood believed to indicate reaction to treatment. They found the frequency of this biomarker was much lower in people who received steroids, and their test scores did not correlate with treatment responses, making it more difficult to track the cancer using blood tests. “We know that steroids will continue to play an important role in lung cancer care, but it is important to understand their potential limitations,” study author Fumito Ito, an oncologist and immunologist at USC Norris Cancer Center, told HealthDay. “Each patient should talk to their oncologist to make sure they have the best possible care plan tailored to their specific needs.”

Colorectal Cancer Linked to Sexual Health Side Effects

Women diagnosed with colorectal cancer may be at risk for sexual side effects, a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found. Researchers used health data from 25,402 women with colorectal cancer and a control group of 254,020 women without colorectal cancer in British Columbia, Canada. They found women with colorectal cancer had a 67% higher risk for dyspareunia, a term for pain during or after sex, than their peers. They also had nearly twice the risk for endometriosis and three times the risk for pelvic inflammatory disease. Healio reported that some side effects were more pronounced in younger women, with those diagnosed before age 40 having a 90% higher chance of pain during sex. For Mary A. De Vera, a study author and a pharmacoepidemiologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, this research held extra significance since she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at age 36. “As a health researcher, I had the knowledge and confidence to advocate for discussions about sexual and reproductive health with my care team. However, in the patient communities I was part of, I saw many others who were not receiving the information, support or care they needed in these areas,” De Vera said.

Cancer Patients Have Higher Incidence of Treatment-resistant Bacterial Infections

Infections are a leading cause of death in people with cancer, whose immune responses can be weakened by the cancer itself or by treatment. A study in Lancet Oncology found many people with cancer have a significant number of pathogens that have grown resistant to antibiotics. To assess the prevalence of treatment-resistant pathogens in cancer patients, researchers analyzed pathogens collected from blood, urine and other samples from over 955,000 people with and without cancer treated at 198 outpatient health centers in the U.S. The analysis found people with cancer were more likely to have at least one treatment-resistant pathogen than people who did not have cancer. Antimicrobial resistance is a growing challenge among cancer patients, researchers wrote. “Administering cancer treatment safely fundamentally depends on having antibiotics available. If there is an increase in incidence or prevalence of antimicrobial resistance organisms, that is a potential threat to how effectively we can manage patients in the future,” Yehoda M. Martei, a study author and a hematologist-oncologist at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, said in an article in Healio. She stressed the need for further drug development to manage infections when existing treatments are no longer effective.

The post July 11: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

‘Suboptimal Percentage’ of People with Advanced Cancer Get Biomarker Testing

In a recent analysis, only about a third of newly diagnosed people with advanced cancer had tumor testing. The study, which was published in JAMA Network Open, looked at claims data from January 2018 to January 2022 and included 26,311 people with advanced breast, colorectal, non-small cell lung, ovarian, pancreatic and stomach cancers. On average, 35% of patients’ records showed evidence of comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP), which is testing that can identify multiple genetic alterations from a single tumor sample. CGP increased from 32% in 2018 to 39% in 2021-2022. People with colorectal or non-small cell lung cancer who had CGP testing were more likely to receive targeted therapy than those do did receive genetic testing. Researchers noted the lack of testing in advanced cancer represents a potential gap in care, MedPage Today reported. “Given the well-established survival advantage for patients treated with biomarker-matched targeted therapies, this finding represents potential suboptimal care of patients with metastatic cancer, especially in cancer types in which targeted therapy is most appropriate,” the researchers wrote. In an accompanying commentary, Kenneth Kehl, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, stressed that testing can only improve outcomes if effective targeted therapies are available for the person’s specific cancer. He also noted more people may gain access to CGP due to the emergence of blood biopsies and the approval of treatments for specific molecular or genetic features across multiple tumor types.

Gastrointestinal Cancers Rise in People Younger Than 50

Adults under 50 are being diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancers, which include colorectal, stomach and pancreatic cancers, at increased rates, according to American Cancer Society statistics. In an analysis published in JAMA, researchers assessed 115 studies published between January 2014 and March 2025 to estimate global incidence of gastrointestinal cancers among people younger than 50 in 2022. The most common early-onset gastrointestinal cancer—with 20,805 diagnoses that year—was colorectal cancer, which underscores the importance of starting screening at age 45, Kimmie Ng, the review’s co-author, told NBC News. While researchers are still investigating potential causes, the study emphasized lifestyle factors and environmental exposures as contributing factors. “It’s really what people were doing or exposed to when they were infants, children, adolescents that is probably contributing to their risk of developing cancer as a young adult,” Ng, a gastrointestinal oncologist and the director of the Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, told NBC News. Colon cancer was once unheard of in people younger than 50, but the increase is likely related to changes in the gut and the bacteria that line the gastrointestinal tract, according to John Marshall, an oncologist and chief medical consultant at the nonprofit Colorectal Cancer Alliance who was not involved in the study. Diet, antibiotic use, microplastics and exposure to environmental chemicals can all influence a person’s gut bacteria.

Immunotherapy Combination Offers Lasting Results in Locally Advanced Melanoma

Most people with stage III or IV resectable melanoma treated with the immunotherapy drugs Opdivo (nivolumab) and Opdualag (relatlimab) were alive and without disease nearly four years after treatment, according to results of a phase II clinical trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Of 30 people who received the drugs before surgery, 87% were alive, and 80% remained disease-free. Of those people, 29 proceeded to surgery, and 27 received the dual immunotherapy after surgery, with 15 completing the full 55 weeks of treatment. Researchers also analyzed tissue samples from 27 patients and found those who had higher expression of two biomarkers were likely to have a durable response. “The responses to treatment in this study led to durable, positive outcomes in patients,” study author Elizabeth Burton, a cancer researcher at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told MedPage Today. “That 80% of patients are recurrence-free after four years is quite remarkable in a very high-risk set of patients who otherwise would have recurred quite quickly.”

The post July 18: The Week in Cancer News appeared first on Cancer Today.

Most Breast Cancer Survivors Have Sexual Side Effects; Most Doctors Don’t Discuss Them

Breast cancer survivors often experience sexual health symptoms and distress, yet they rarely receive advice on how to address these side effects, according to a study published in JAMA Oncology Practice. In a survey of 1,775 breast cancer survivors, 89.5% of respondents reported a moderate to great deal of change in their sexual health, 84.8% said they experienced a moderate to great deal of distress because of their sexual health, and 72.3% reported the sexual side effects impacted their relationship, Healio reported. The most common issues were decreased interest in sex, vaginal dryness, reduced arousal, body image concerns and pain during sex. Despite how widespread the concerns were, 73% reported they had never discussed the topic with their health care team. Of survivors who did have a discussion, 71% said they had to bring it up to their doctor. “I think sex has always been a really taboo topic, but it doesn’t have to be,” Laila S. Agrawal, the study’s lead author and a medical oncologist at Norton Cancer Institute in Louisville, Kentucky, told Healio. “We talk to patients about the most intimate aspects of their life through cancer care, and there’s nothing different about sexuality.” Agrawal said survivors have many options for improving sexual health after breast cancer treatment, such as using lubricants or moisturizers, starting pelvic floor physical therapy, and taking medications to increase libido.

Cardiac Biomarkers May Predict Cancer Risk

Certain proteins in the blood can signal an increased risk for heart attack and other heart problems, but new research suggests they may also indicate elevated cancer risk. In a study published in JACC: Advances, researchers followed health outcomes for 6,244 people with no evidence of cancer or cardiovascular disease. At the start of the study, researchers measured participants’ levels of N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT), two proteins that can indicate heart problems when found at high levels in the blood. During a median follow-up period of 17.8 years, 820 people developed cancer, Healio reported. People with the highest levels of NT-proBNP had a 66% higher risk for colorectal cancer and a 31% higher risk for lung cancer than those with the lowest levels. Additionally, people with the highest levels of hs-cTnT had a 39% higher risk for colorectal cancer than those with the lowest levels. The proteins were not associated with increased risk for breast or prostate cancer. “Our study suggests that even mildly elevated cardiac biomarkers—often seen in people without symptoms—may signal a higher risk of cancer, not just heart disease,” Xinjiang Cai, the study’s lead author and a cardiologist at UCLA Health in Los Angeles, told Healio. “This finding highlights a potential link between hidden heart damage and cancer development.”

Causes of Lung Cancer in Nonsmokers Remain a Mystery

While lung cancer diagnoses and deaths continue to drop as fewer people smoke, the disease burden is increasingly shifting to nonsmokers. Today, up to 25% of lung cancer cases occur in people who have not smoked, the New York Times reported. Among some groups of Asian American women and people younger than 50, nonsmokers now account for more cases of lung cancer than smokers. Researchers continue to be baffled by this trend. One study found that lung cancers in people who live in countries with high levels of air pollution were more likely to have certain DNA mutations. Air pollution may directly damage DNA or cause cells to divide rapidly, which both increase cancer risk. Other possible causes include cooking fumes, exposure to asbestos and radon, lung infections, and secondhand smoke. Scarlett Lin Gomez, an epidemiologist at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in San Francisco, is leading a study investigating the causes of lung cancer among nonsmoking Asian American women. “Ultimately, we want to be able to come up with actionable risk factors, just like we do for breast cancer and colorectal cancer,” Gomez told the Times. Since the exact cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers remains unknown, the disease is often caught by chance or when it has reached an advanced stage. Current U.S. guidelines limit lung cancer screening to older people with a smoking history, but researchers are exploring whether testing younger people with other risk factors could help catch the disease when it is more manageable.

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AI and other emerging technologies can help patients receive more efficient and effective cancer care, which could help lead to better quality of life, according to a panel of experts who participated in a July 15, 2025, Virtual Patient Advocate Forum, held by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). (The AACR also publishes Cancer Today.) The forum, titled “From Discovery to Survivorship: Technology’s Role in Beating Cancer,” focused on technologies that are rapidly progressing from concept to reality in clinical care.

“This is the science fiction of old, but this is what we are dealing with now in the present,” said forum moderator Anna Barker, chief strategy officer of the Ellison Medical Institute in Los Angeles.

AI Analytics

AI uses large computer models to perform human functions, such as thinking, learning and solving problems. But unlike humans, these models can analyze a seemingly infinite amount of data, allowing AI to reach conclusions based on more data than a human could possibly comprehend.

This ability to quickly synthesize data could dramatically accelerate cancer research. For example, Mayo Clinic has developed a database that contains records for 56 million people across the world and uses AI to see patterns in this real-world data, according to Cheryl L. Willman, director of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center in Rochester, Minnesota.

Additionally, AI can help translate data into easy-to-understand language. Garry Nolan, an immunologist at Stanford University School of Medicine in California and a skin and kidney cancer survivor, helped develop an AI model that acts as a trained immunologist. Users can ask the program questions, and it will draw on data from more than 22 million scientific papers to offer an answer in natural language. Nolan said this technology allows everyone to easily access and understand the wealth of scientific information that’s available. “This democratizes the analysis that used to be only singularly available in certain laboratories,” he said.

AI could also lead to earlier cancer detection. After a patient has a CT scan, MRI or other imaging test, AI tools can quickly scan and detect patterns not visible to the human eye. “Our improved imaging tools, along with AI-based image analysis that helps radiologists review images, lead to faster, more accurate diagnoses so that we can initiate treatment quickly,” said Reva K. Basho, chief medical officer of the Ellison Medical Institute.

With AI tools, oncologists could potentially catch cancer years earlier than traditional techniques. One AI model can review patient records and detect pancreatic cancer up to three years before the human eye would spot it on a CT scan, according to Willman. In a clinical trial that is enrolling 10,000 people, Mayo Clinic plans to use the algorithm to identify those at high risk for pancreatic cancer and then monitor them with regular CT scans.

Additionally, AI could also speed up drug development. Researchers use AI tools to design drugs and identify the treatments most likely to be effective against a specific disease. One such tool is AlphaFold, an AI program that predicts the structure of proteins produced by cancer cells. Once researchers know what these structures look like, they can create molecules that bind to those proteins. This eliminates much of the trial-and-error process of isolating molecules that can delay drug development. “It’s put us on the highway of drug discovery,” Basho said.

Despite all of AI’s potential benefits, people still need to exercise caution, the experts warned. AI models only work if they are trained with adequate data that include all patient populations, according to Basho. AI can still sometimes present incorrect information, called a hallucination, but models are increasingly becoming more accurate, according to Nolan.

Oncologists also need to ensure they use the AI data properly, Basho said. AI can cause information overload, so oncologists need to put the data in context. Another potential pitfall is overdiagnosis. Improved early detection could lead to diagnoses of disease that never would have impacted the patient or for which no treatments exist.

Nanotechnology

While some presenters described how AI synthesizes massive amounts of data, Angela M. Belcher, a biological and materials engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, focused on the smallest bits of information. Nanotechnology deals with materials that are up to 100 nanometers in size—which is about a one-thousandth the thickness of a sheet of paper.

Belcher is exploring how nanotechnology can improve detection of ovarian cancer, which is often found in the fallopian tubes. When a person at risk for cancer has their fallopian tubes removed, pathologists examine slices of tissue from the fallopian tubes for cancerous cells. This, however, means only about 1% of the organ is inspected. Researchers have built a machine that uses nanoparticles designed to give off a bright light when a laser is shined on them. In an ongoing study, Belcher’s lab has used this machine to examine fallopian tubes from 87 people, rapidly scanning the entire organ instead of just a small sliver. They watch to see if the light produces optical signatures that indicate the presence of a tumor less than a millimeter in size, which would otherwise go unnoticed by standard pathology.

Decentralized Care and Clinical Trials

New technologies also hold the potential to bring cancer care right into a patient’s home. Mayo Clinic’s Cancer Care Beyond Walls program lets people with cancer receive chemotherapy without a trip to the clinic, according to Willman. Home health care professionals administer chemotherapy drugs in a patient’s home, and digital tools allow doctors to monitor the patient. Earlier this year, Mayo partnered with Altru Health System to offer the program in the Grand Forks, North Dakota, area. “It’s truly transformative in bringing access to high-quality cancer care to the home environment,” Willman said.

Virtual tools also could expand clinical trial access. Participants now can sign trial consent documents virtually, interact with the study team remotely and receive the investigational medication via home delivery. Researchers can monitor them via wearable technology, such as a smartwatch. Roughly a quarter of Mayo’s clinical trials—including 378 cancer studies—are now decentralized, meaning some or all of the trial activities occur outside of a traditional research hospital, according to Willman.

These programs eliminate the need for frequent hospital visits and long-distance travel, and they allow people who live far away from a cancer center to join a clinical trial. “Through these programs … we truly believe we look to a future where care can truly be accessible to all,” Willman said.

The post Technology’s Changing Role in Cancer Care appeared first on Cancer Today.

Most Cases of Liver Cancer Are Linked to Preventable Causes

Researchers found 60% of liver cancer cases globally can be attributed to modifiable risk factors, such as alcohol consumption, metabolic dysfunction and hepatitis infection, according to an article in the Lancet. Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world, with 900,000 new cases expected annually, the New York Times reported. “Liver cancer is common, it causes immense suffering and death, and the saddest part for me as a physician is that most of the cases are preventable,” Brian P. Lee, a transplant hepatologist at Keck Medicine at USC in Los Angeles who was not involved in the study, told the Times. In the U.S., screening, vaccination and treatment have helped decrease the impact of viral hepatitis on liver cancer incidence. But alcohol use and metabolic conditions associated with obesity and Type 2 diabetes can contribute to increased liver scarring that can lead to liver cancer. Current guidelines recommend monitoring for liver cancer in people who have a history of hepatitis or cirrhosis, which is severe, often irreversible scarring of the liver. Primary care doctors can use blood tests to detect scarring when it becomes more serious. People who show signs of scarring and metabolic dysfunction can often reduce their risk for cancer by making changes to get more exercise and eat healthier, the Times reported.

Skin Cancer Can Be Caused by a Type of HPV

Doctors discovered that skin cancer can be caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), according to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The team from the National Institutes of Health found that the cancer was caused by beta HPV, a type of the virus distinct from HPV strains associated with cervical, throat and other cancers. The woman in whose cancer this was found had a condition that weakened her immune system, which allowed the beta HPV to infiltrate the skin cells. There, the virus caused changes in the DNA that led to squamous cell carcinoma, the second most common type of skin cancer. Beta HPV is found in about 90% of people, most commonly on the skin. However, it is unlikely to cause cancer in people with healthy immune function, NBC News reported. “This is just one patient, and they have this unique situation of an immunological condition that enables the beta HPV to replicate unchecked,” Anthony Oro, a dermatologist and skin cancer specialist at Stanford Medicine in California who wasn’t involved in the case, told NBC News. How many people may be at risk for cancer caused by beta HPV is not known, but in some people with compromised immune systems, “beta-type HPV viruses could contribute to skin cancer and maybe other kinds of cancers as well,” Oro said. The woman received a stem cell transplant, a procedure that replaced her immune cells with new ones that kept HPV from replicating, NBC News reported.

Ultraprocessed Foods Linked to Lung Cancer Risk

Another study has linked high consumption of ultraprocessed foods with cancer. In this case, scientists identified risk for a new disease: lung cancer. In a study published in Thorax, researchers analyzed medical records for 101,732 people in the U.S. who participated in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial and filled out a questionnaire about their eating habits. In the results, the quarter of participants who reported the highest consumption of ultraprocessed foods had a 41% higher risk for lung cancer than those in the lowest quarter. Ultraprocessed foods include synthetic additives, such as artificial colors and flavorings and preservatives. The study noted that this includes hot dogs, candies and soda, as well as sour cream, bread, breakfast cereals and pizza. The study was observational, meaning it wasn’t able to prove causation between ultraprocessed foods and lung cancer. While it adjusted for other risk factors, such as smoking, researchers noted there was still potential for confounding factors in identifying the risk factors for lung cancer, CNN reported. Diets high in ultraprocessed foods have been associated with several health conditions, including heart disease and diabetes. They also often coincide with other unhealthy eating habits, such as higher consumption of saturated fats, salt, sugar and calories. Fang Fang Zhang, a cancer epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston who was not involved in the study, told CNN that people who wish to start healthier eating habits can begin by avoiding foods that have long lists of unfamiliar ingredients on the product labels. “Prioritize whole food and prepare meals using whole or minimally processed ingredients whenever possible,” she said.

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DIPG is challenging to treat because the tumor cells diffuse into the surrounding brain tissue, making surgical removal impossible. Standard treatments, like chemotherapy and radiation, are often ineffective, leaving patients with few options.

Two early-phase clinical trials investigated a novel approach to administering CAR T-cell therapy for DIPG—delivering the cells directly into the ventricles of the brain, a method called intracerebroventricular (ICV) infusion. Early results show signs that the cancer responded to treatment and extended survival, but researchers are still working to find out which patients may benefit from this treatment and how to address its side effects.

Delivering CAR T-cell Therapy to the Brain

In a phase I trial published Jan. 7, 2025, in Nature Medicine, 21 children with DIPG received repeated doses of CAR T cells. CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T cells are a patient’s own T cells that have been genetically modified to recognize and destroy cancer cells. The therapy targeted a protein called B7-H3 and was delivered directly into the brain.

“By giving CAR T cells directly into the brain, we essentially avoid systemic side effects and can get the CAR T cells directly where they need to be,” says Nicholas Vitanza, the trial’s lead investigator and a pediatric neuro-oncologist and scientific director of brain tumor research at Seattle Children’s in Washington.

Participants lived for a median of 19.8 months after diagnosis and 10.7 months after receiving their first infusion of CAR T cells. Notably, the study reported that three people were still alive 44, 45 and 52 months after diagnosis.

Another phase I trial, published Nov. 13, 2024, also in Nature Medicine, treated 11 people with H3K27M-mutant DIPG or spinal diffuse midline glioma (sDMG), a rare and aggressive cancer that develops in the spinal cord. The study used a different CAR T-cell therapy, this one designed to target the GD2 molecule. In an initial round of treatment given by IV, few people had side effects that required limiting treatment, and, in some cases, their tumors shrank drastically. Eight people who showed benefit from the IV dose later received additional infusions directly into the brain via ICV. One person achieved a complete response that lasted more than 30 months.

“While these phase I trials are designed to measure safety and feasibility, it is impossible to ignore the fact that three patients with DIPG [across both trials] are still alive around four years after their diagnoses,” says David Kram, a pediatric neuro-oncologist at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who was not involved in the studies. “This is without precedent and justifies the excitement. I believe there is ample justification to continue with the CAR T approach for both DIPG and DMG.”

Next Steps for CAR T-cell Therapy in Brain Tumors

Despite its promise, CAR T-cell therapy poses several challenges in this diagnosis.

Cost is a significant barrier. The total price of existing CAR T-cell therapies can exceed $350,000 per infusion, not including additional medical procedures and facility fees. For uninsured or underinsured patients, this can create a heavy financial burden.

Access is also limited. Because CAR T-cell clinical trials are only available at select specialized hospitals, many families must travel long distances to participate, and they may face issues with insurance coverage along the way.

Researchers also must manage the potentially serious side effects associated with the therapy, like cytokine release syndrome and inflammation or swelling in the brain. These side effects can mimic tumor progression, making it hard to determine whether treatment is working.

These trials were primarily designed to test safety, and much work remains to refine and expand CAR T-cell therapy for DIPG. “Next key steps will be to explore optimal CAR T-cell constructs, optimal CAR T-cell doses and route of administration, mitigating CAR T-cell toxicities and ultimately what treatments could be combined with CAR T-cell therapy to achieve the best possible outcomes,” Kram says.

Understanding why some people respond to treatment is also a major focus. “We have two patients that are now alive more than four years from their diagnosis and still on the clinical trial, doing extremely well, but we are yet to identify what may make them distinct,” Vitanza says.

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A recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accelerated approval marks a step forward in treating a lethal brain cancer that is predominantly diagnosed in children. The drug, Modeyso (dordaviprone), which is taken as a once-weekly oral capsule, is approved for people age 1 or older who have H3 K27M-mutated diffuse midline glioma (DMG) and whose cancer progressed after other treatments. This marks the first drug approval for this cancer with this mutation, MedPage Today reported. The approval was based on data from five clinical studies that enrolled 50 patients who had DMG with this mutation, which is commonly found in this type of brain cancer. Among the participants, 22% responded to the drug, with the response lasting a median of 10.3 months. Some patients’ responses lasted for over a year. “For the first time, we have an FDA-approved therapy for patients with recurrent H3 K27M-mutant diffuse midline glioma,” Patrick Wen, a study investigator and a neuro-oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said in a press release. “While outcomes remain challenging for many patients, the objective responses observed with dordaviprone, including durable benefit in some patients, represent a meaningful advancement.”

Colorectal Cancer Screening Rises in People Ages 45 to 49

As U.S. incidence of colorectal cancer continues to climb in people under 50, a series of studies published in JAMA suggests more people ages 45 to 49 are getting screened for the disease—and the cancer is being detected at earlier stages. According to a research letter in the journal, 33.7% of people in this age group were up to date with their colorectal cancer screening in 2023—a jump from 20.8% in 2019. In the study, researchers tracked various screening methods, including colonoscopy and at-home stool-based tests, such as fecal occult blood testing and fecal immunochemical testing. In a separate research letter, researchers also noted a steep increase in detecting early-stage colorectal cancer in this age group between 2019 and 2022. “It’s thrilling to see this,” Rebecca Siegel, an American Cancer Society epidemiologist who was involved in one of the studies, told the Wall Street Journal about the increased screening rates. She also noted that earlier detection means “fewer deaths and higher quality of life.” Still, experts told the Journal more outreach is needed, as most people under 45 are not yet routinely screened, despite rising cancer rates in that group. The American Cancer Society lowered its age recommendation for colorectal cancer screening from 50 to 45 in 2018. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force made that same recommendation in 2021.

Drug Could Reduce Side Effects Associated With CAR T-cell Therapy

The drug itacitinib, taken twice daily, significantly reduced the risk of serious side effects like cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity in people receiving CAR T-cell therapy for blood cancer, according to a study published in Blood. CAR T-cell therapy uses a patient’s own modified immune cells to target and destroy cancer, but these responses can cause immune-related side effects. Itacitinib, a JAK1 inhibitor, works by blocking signals that drive a key immune response: inflammation. In the study, which included 111 patients, 17% of participants who received itacitinib developed moderate or worse CRS, compared with 57% of those on a placebo, Medscape reported. These findings suggest itacitinib, which is an investigational drug, may help make CAR T-cell therapy safer and more manageable for patients, study authors noted.

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In the phase III randomized trial, 381 women with ovarian, primary peritoneal or fallopian tube cancer were randomly assigned to receive relacorilant and nab-paclitaxel (188 patients) or nab-paclitaxel alone (193 patients). The trial was open label, meaning there was no placebo and the participants were informed what treatments they were given. Everyone in the trial had platinum-resistant cancer—cancer that initially responded to treatment with drugs that contain the metal platinum, such as cisplatin and carboplatin, then recurred within six months. Nab-paclitaxel is a taxane, which is a chemotherapy that disrupts cell growth by preventing cell division, and is formulated with a protein called albumin, which enhances chemotherapy delivery into cancer cells.

Patients in the relacorilant/nab-paclitaxel group received relacorilant in pill form the day before, the day of and the day after IV infusions with nab-paclitaxel. Treatment continued until the disease progressed or treatment side effects became intolerable. Participants in both groups had previously received one to three lines of chemotherapy and bevacizumab, a monoclonal antibody medication designed to slow tumor growth.

Improving Chemotherapy Sensitivity

In the trial, the relacorilant and nab-paclitaxel combination resulted in a modest improvement in median progression-free survival, or the median length of time patients live without their disease worsening. The progression-free survival was 6.54 months for the group receiving relacorilant versus 5.52 months for the group given nab-paclitaxel alone. Those given relacorilant also had a nearly five-month increase in median overall survival (15.97 months versus 11.5 months), compared with nab-paclitaxel alone. “Adding relacorilant, which blocks the glucocorticoid receptor at the cellular level, improves chemotherapy sensitivity,” says David M. O’Malley, a co-author of the study and a gynecologic oncologist at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus. “From previous trials, we know high cortisol levels are a negative diagnostic indicator in patients with ovarian cancer.”

Although the trial is not yet completed, O’Malley says he expects the final analysis will continue to show a sustained increase in both progression-free and overall survival rates in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer receiving the combination. “In the context of real numbers, it’s a 30% improvement in progression-free survival and a 31% overall survival improvement,” he says. “We’re seeing people with sustained improvement in their disease, which will change the landscape of how we approach patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.” Although more treatments are being investigated, patients have traditionally had limited options. The outcome for patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer remains generally poor, with median survival of less than a year.

Based on the trial’s interim results, relacorilant has been submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If approved, relacorilant could become another treatment option for people with platinum-resistant disease. “We haven’t seen an overall survival benefit in the platinum-resistant ovarian cancer setting, so this really exciting,” says Shannon Westin, a gynecologic oncologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who was not part of the study.

Moreover, “in this era of precision medicine, the combination seemed to work for people with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer who don’t have biomarkers that have other drugs available,” Westin says. Adding relacorilant to treatment did not lead to an increase in side effects, but she notes that weekly taxane chemotherapy can be challenging. Side effects can include hair loss, neuropathy, fatigue, nausea and diarrhea, plus the logistics of attending weekly treatments.

Relacorilant is currently available only in clinical trials, so O’Malley recommends that patients diagnosed with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer talk to their doctor about their treatment options. Though there are multiple chemotherapies available for this group, he says a weekly taxane, such as nab-paclitaxel, has been found more effective in most patients. For platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, he says “taxane chemotherapy alone has about a 30% response rate, outperforming other, non-taxane agents.”

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Older Women With High-risk Breast Cancer May Not Need Chemotherapy

Adding chemotherapy to hormone therapy after surgery did not improve survival in women over age 70 with high-risk hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, according to a study in the Lancet. The study included 1,089 women who received genomic testing to assess their risk of recurrence. The women were divided into two groups: one that received hormone therapy alone and another that received hormone therapy and chemotherapy. In the people who received both chemotherapy and hormone therapy, the overall survival was 90.5% at four years and 72.7% at eight years, compared with 89.3% and 68.3%, respectively, in the group that received only hormone therapy, MedPage Today reported. More women in the group that received chemotherapy reported severe toxicity. In fact, 52 (9%) of 548 people in the no chemotherapy group experienced at least one grade 3 or higher side effect, indicating that the effect interfered with daily activities and required treatment or hospitalization. Grade 3 effects were seen in 183 (34%) of 541 people in the chemotherapy group. Authors of an accompanying editorial in the Lancet said the study provides perspective about a patient population that has been historically excluded from clinical trials because of their age. The editorial also noted limitations in the study’s ability to analyze subgroups in the population, and the authors suggested that treatment decisions going forward will require nuance. “The comprehensive dataset will assist older women in balancing quantity and quality of life when considering chemotherapy to treat their high-risk, estrogen receptor-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer,” medical oncologist Sabine C. Linn and researcher Florentine S. Hilbers, both of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, wrote in the editorial.

Immune Response Linked to Outcomes in Early Trial of Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine

Twenty-one of 25 people with pancreatic or colorectal cancer mounted immune responses after receiving an off-the-shelf vaccine, according to a phase I clinical trial published in Nature Medicine. People who had strong immune responses, in which their immune systems seemed to identify KRAS mutations and other targets on the cancer cells, also lived the longest after the treatment, the study found. While personalized vaccines for cancer treatment require genomic profiling of the tumor, the vaccine in the study, called ELI-002 2P, used short chains of amino acids called peptides to help the immune cells recognize and fight cells with KRAS mutations. In the study, people with pancreatic cancer survived for an average of 29 months and lived recurrence-free for more than 15 months post-vaccination, NBC News reported, which suggests progress in a particularly difficult-to-treat disease. “That far exceeds the rates with resectable cancers,” Zev Wainberg, a medical oncologist at UCLA Health in Los Angeles and study co-leader, told NBC News.

Genetic Testing in Gastrointestinal Cancers Reduces Risk of Chemotherapy Side Effects

A study found testing people with gastrointestinal cancer for genetic changes associated with increased chemotherapy toxicity could guide decisions prior to starting treatment. The study, which was published in JCO Precision Oncology, also found testing reduced the risk of serious side effects in patients. Participants were tested for two gene variants: a DPYD variant that hinders the body’s ability to process fluoropyrimidines, such as fluorouracil and Xeloda (capecitabine), which can cause these chemotherapies to build up in the body to toxic levels, and a UGT1A1 variant that causes people to metabolize the chemotherapy irinotecan slowly, which can result in severe diarrhea or low white blood counts. Compared with records of gastrointestinal cancers patients who had the same mutations and received standard chemotherapy, people who had a tailored dose of chemotherapy based on genetic testing had fewer treatment modifications (38% vs 76%), as well as fewer severe treatment-related adverse events (38% vs 65%) and treatment discontinuations (31% vs 47%), MedPage Today reported. However, getting timely genomic testing results for this purpose is a challenge. For this study, researchers developed an assay able to produce results in seven to 10 days, and the median time to receive testing results was about 10 days. Just over half of the results came back before the patient was scheduled to start chemotherapy, Sony Tuteja, a clinician-scientist at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, told MedPage Today. Of the 288 patients who were tested, 16 had one of the variants that would affect their treatment and received a dose adjustment. “Our study and others have shown that a good way to safely provide these chemotherapy drugs to patients who carry these variants is to test them before treatment and do the dose reductions prior to the first dose,” Tuteja said. “But we really have to create the clinical workflows and infrastructures to support genetic testing in clinical care to make it easy for the clinicians to use it.” Genetic testing for the DPYD variant is recommended through treatment guidelines for colon cancer in Europe but not in the U.S., MedPage Today reported.

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A new study published July 7, 2025, in the journal Cancer Research Communications provides evidence that steroids taken at the start of treatment can indeed lower the effectiveness of immunotherapy. By studying 277 patients with non-small cell lung cancer at two California hospitals, researchers found a “profound” disparity between the 21 patients who were receiving steroids at the start of treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and the patients who didn’t receive steroids.

Most significantly, median overall survival time for patients at one hospital was 21 months for those who did not receive steroids, compared with about eight months for those who did. At the second hospital, the median survival was about 16 months compared with four months for those receiving steroids.

Fumito Ito, a surgeon-scientist at Keck Medicine of USC in Los Angeles and lead author of the study, says the results help affirm a growing body of research on using steroids at the start of ICI treatment. By adjusting for important variables such as smoking and treatment history, cancer stage, and personal characteristics, Ito says the study offers additional evidence of steroids’ effects on ICI treatment.

“Whether or not [a patient] was on steroids at the beginning of treatment was the only independent factor” that impacted outcomes in both cohorts, Ito says.

However, researchers note that steroids are an important treatment for certain symptoms. The patients receiving steroids in Ito’s study all either had brain metastases or underlying lung conditions; steroids are used to reduce inflammation from both. Ito’s research also suggests the timing of steroid administration, as well as dosage level, can significantly impact outcomes.

For example, Ito’s study found that patients who received moderate doses of steroids “did not show a significant difference” in survival times compared with the group who received none. And a 2021 study, led by hematologist-oncologist Diana Maslov, found that cancer patients who received steroids two months or more after starting immunotherapy lived an average of 25 months. Those who received steroids earlier in treatment lived about six months.

“We were looking for ways that we can use steroids as needed to keep patients safe, while still getting the best of the immunotherapy.” says Maslov, a hematologist-oncologist at Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group in San Diego.

Mysterious Mechanics

Maslov notes that despite steroids’ known effect of suppressing immune responses, at the time of her 2021 research, many studies had actually found no detriments to their use alongside immune checkpoint inhibitors. It is only as researchers began to apply more refined techniques and tease out variables that potential problems arose. Now, scientists still have important questions to answer about the role of timing and dosage.

For their research, Ito’s team also studied the effect in mice. They found mice that stopped receiving steroids just prior to the start of ICI therapy did not appear to have a worse outcome, an important finding in the controlled environment. Ito and colleagues say they hope the work can serve to advance a more thorough understanding of the interactions between the two treatments.

As scientists continue their hunt for answers, Maslov says that immunotherapy patients should not develop a view that all steroid use is detrimental, even if a doctor recommends it early during ICI treatment. She offers as an example people who experience lung inflammation, which if left untreated by steroids, could progress to a severe and potentially fatal stage. Cases diagnosed at a more progressed stage would then be treated with an even larger dose of steroids. Maslov urges patients not to conceal any symptoms, such as cough or trouble breathing from their doctors and instead stay in close contact about any adverse symptoms.

“Of course we want to minimize steroid use, but at the same time, they can be what patients need,” Maslov says. “And the only way for doctors to know is for that patient to communicate with them. You don’t want to wait until you can’t breathe.”

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