cancer

Osteosarcoma is a rare bone tumor that, when it appears, usually affects children and young adults. Due to its complexity, hardly any advances in its treatment have been made in the last 40 years. A team of researchers with Spanish participation has now described the mechanism that would explain its aggressiveness in approximately half of the cases. In addition, they propose a marker that could be used to predict prognosis. The results are published in the journal Cell. 

According to a meta-analysis of 14 studies involving more than 25,000 people, drinking more than four cups of coffee per day was associated with a lower incidence of head and neck tumors. Drinking between none and one cup of tea was also associated with a slightly decreased risk, although daily consumption of more than one cup of tea was associated with an increased risk of developing laryngeal cancer. The results are published in the journal Cancer. 

A team of researchers has analyzed data from the World Health Organization to estimate the incidence of colorectal cancer in 50 countries around the world. Their conclusions, based on records up to 2017, are that in most high-income countries its incidence continues to increase in young people (under 50 years of age). This increase, however, is not observed in Spain. The results are published in the journal The Lancet Oncology.   

Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) sequencing analysis for fetal aneuploidies - chromosomal abnormalities - can incidentally detect maternal cancer, according to a study published in NEJM. Researchers screened 107 pregnant and postpartum mothers with no symptoms of cancer, but who had received unusual clinical cfDNA sequencing results, for cancer. In this sample, cancer was present in 48% of the women.

CAR-T cell-based treatments have been successful against some blood tumours, but are much less effective for solid tumours. A phase 1 clinical trial has tested their use in 11 children and young adults with diffuse midline glioma, a tumour of the nervous system that is considered incurable. The results, published in the journal Nature, indicate that the treatment improved functional status in nine of the 11 patients. One of the four who showed a strong response is still healthy four years later.

The HTAN (Human Tumor Atlas Network) consortium is simultaneously publishing 11 papers in different journals of the Nature group. These include analyses of the architecture of tumors and their environment in more than 2,000 patients and twenty different locations, which will make it possible to study how they start and evolve. Among the novelties found are new clues about the development of metastasis and resistance to treatments, and the finding that colorectal cancer can arise from multiple cells with different mutations that act collectively, instead of from a single initial clone as previously thought.

A study conducted in several Spanish provinces has analysed the relationship between breast cancer and obesity in more than 2,000 postmenopausal women. Its findings are that around 40% of estrogen receptor positive (ER+) cases - the most common type - can be attributed to excess body fat (above 40%). This is much higher than the 10% considered attributable when only a high body mass index is taken into account. The results are published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Despite considerable advances in the discovery and development of new cancer drugs, there are significant disparities in both the availability and timeliness of these medicines around the world, with the poorest countries being left out, according to an analysis published in the journal BMJ Global Health. According to the study, few new cancer drugs were launched in low- and lower-middle-income countries, and the gap between rich and poor countries widened over the three decades between 1990 and 2022.

If lifetime tobacco consumption were banned among young people currently aged 14 to 18, 1,200,000 lung cancer deaths worldwide could be prevented in the future, according to a study with Spanish involvement published in the journal The Lancet Public Health. The greatest impact would occur in low- and middle-income countries, but in higher-income regions, more than 60% of lung cancer deaths in that age group would also be avoided.

Prostate cancer screening tests using PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) are associated with overdiagnosis, which calls into question their use. A clinical trial in men aged 50-60 years published in the journal NEJM has studied the possibility of adding an MRI test in those with an elevated PSA level and dispensing with biopsy if imaging finds no suspicious lesions. The results indicate that the procedure avoids more than half of clinically irrelevant cancer diagnoses that would not need treatment and only slightly increases the risk of failing to identify those that may become incurable. The authors recommend, on the basis of the study, to review the recommendations for such screening.