March 20, 2020: The Week in Cancer News
An update on how the spread of coronavirus is impacting cancer care, and more news of the week from Cancer Today.
Progress Against Cancer
An update on how the spread of coronavirus is impacting cancer care, and more news of the week from Cancer Today.
Cancer patients in the U.S. are feeling impacts from the new coronavirus. Doctors are rescheduling routine follow-up visits and encouraging telehealth visits when possible.
Despite concerns that reducing nicotine levels in cigarettes could have unintended effects on smoking behavior, findings from two recent studies suggest that smokers do not smoke more cigarettes or smoke more intensely when using low-nicotine cigarettes.
Multigene panels that rely on next-generation sequencing are increasingly used to test for hereditary cancer risk-related mutations. The federal government aims to expand Medicare coverage for these tests.
Experts offer information and cancer centers take precautions in light of the novel coronavirus, and the Food and Drug Administration approves an immunotherapy combination for liver cancer.
The incidence of colorectal cancer – the fourth most common cancer diagnosed in the United States – has been steadily declining since the late 1990s. Despite this decrease, it is estimated that the lifetime risk of developing the disease is roughly one in 20 for those living in the United States. If the cancer is caught early when it is still localized, the five-year relative survival is almost 90 percent. However, if diagnosed after it has metastasized, the five-year relative survival is less than 15 percent.
The FDA approved using a combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab, two immune checkpoint inhibitors, to treat certain patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer of antibody-producing cells – called plasma cells – that accounts for approximately 1.8 percent of new cancer cases in the United States. Although it is a relatively uncommon cancer, those who are diagnosed face a five-year survival rate of only 52 percent. Patients who are diagnosed at an early stage generally have a better prognosis; however, almost all patients are diagnosed after the cancer has progressed to a more advanced stage.
A report shows that colorectal cancer incidence is decreasing in older adults while simultaneously rising in younger individuals, and more news of the week from Cancer Today.
Using an older method of prostate biopsy together with MRI-targeted biopsy more accurately diagnoses prostate cancer than either method alone, a study finds.
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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