February 7, 2020: The Week in Cancer News
A roundup of the week in cancer research news from the staff of Cancer Today magazine.
Progress Against Cancer
A roundup of the week in cancer research news from the staff of Cancer Today magazine.
The number of cancer patients and survivors visiting emergency departments for opioid overdoses more than doubled between 2006 and 2015, but overdoses are still uncommon in this group.
Thanks to a wave of newly approved therapies in the past two decades, survival rates for multiple myeloma have increased dramatically. Still, the cancer research community is concerned about disparities in patient care. African Americans are disproportionately affected by multiple myeloma, having a two- to three-fold higher incidence of multiple myeloma compared with whites and representing 20 percent of the multiple myeloma patients in the U.S. Despite this difference in incidence, African Americans have historically been underrepresented in clinical trials for multiple myeloma therapies.
Despite considerable progress against cancer, the disease continues to take a huge toll on global health. Each year, approximately 9.6 million people around the world die of cancer. And while some nations have seen cancer death rates stabilize or decline, many countries face rising rates of the disease. The advances in research, treatment, and diagnosis that have reduced the cancer burden in wealthier nations have not been shared by lower- or middle-income countries.
Researchers developed a risk prediction model that could categorize individuals with lung nodules as having high or low risk for lung cancer.
Once the leading cause of cancer-related mortality among women, cervical cancer now accounts for less than 1 percent of cancer-related deaths among women in the United States. This dramatic decrease is largely due to the implementation of screening, which can detect precancerous lesions and early-stage cancer, and vaccination, which can prevent the cancer from developing at all.
Back for the new decade is our regular staple: the monthly collection of 10 “must read” articles that have been handpicked by editors from the eight journals published by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Earlier this month, the AACR announced that its ninth peer-reviewed journal, Blood Cancer Discovery, published its first article, which was highlighted in a recent blog post. Like the studies summarized below, this inaugural article is freely available.
A study shows that some cancer patients wish they had known more about possible adverse effects of treatment.
The FDA has approved a molecularly targeted therapy for epithelioid sarcoma, the first treatment approved for this rare form of soft tissue sarcoma.
The first paper to be accepted by the AACR’s latest journal, Blood Cancer Discovery, was published online last week. The paper, which is freely available on the journal website, describes the landscape of mutations present in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and how this landscape changes during treatment, leading to relapse.
AACR Fellow Lewis C. Cantley, PhD, leads a national effort targeting triple-negative breast cancer and ovarian cancer with a novel drug combination.
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