A randomized trial of more than 80,000 Swedish women has shown that artificial intelligence is as good as two specialized radiologists working together when it comes to detecting breast cancer, without increasing false positives and reducing the workload by almost half.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) have published a health impact assessment of the sweetener aspartame. Citing "limited evidence" of carcinogenicity in humans, IARC has classified aspartame as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B). For its part, JECFA has not changed the acceptable daily intake of this sweetener, which is set at 40 mg/kg body weight. According to these bodies, with one can of diet soft drink containing 200-300 mg aspartame, a 70 kg adult would need to consume more than 9-14 cans per day to exceed the acceptable daily intake - assuming no other intake from other dietary sources.
A Canadian study has examined whether there is a link between occupation and risk of ovarian cancer. After analysing data from nearly 500 women diagnosed with the disease and nearly 900 controls, they found that working for more than ten years in professions such as hairdressing or beauticians triples the risk of ovarian cancer. The risk also increases in occupations such as accountants or those related to the textile industry. The results are published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
Reuters has reported that aspartame, one of the most common artificial sweeteners, will be listed as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organisation, in July.
A team of scientists led by the University Hospital Zurich (Switzerland) has tested a new treatment for glioblastoma, a highly aggressive nervous system tumour with a poor prognosis. The therapy consists of a fusion protein that combines the TNF factor - a key factor in the processes of inflammation and immune response - with an antibody that targets the tumour matrix. The researchers, whose results are published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, have studied its action together with a type of chemotherapy both in mice and in six patients included in a phase 1 clinical trial.
Most high-income countries do not have prostate cancer screening programmes for their entire population; prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests can be done on an individual basis. In an opinion piece published in The BMJ, a group of urologists and epidemiologists specialised in prostate cancer screening argue for restricting the use of PSA tests to avoid over-detection and over-treatment.
A phase 1 clinical trial has tested personalised mRNA vaccines against the most common type of pancreatic cancer with a particularly poor prognosis. The treatment, which is tailored to the characteristics of each patient's tumour, was given to 16 people along with surgery, chemotherapy and other immunotherapy. Half of them showed an immune response to the vaccine, which was associated with a better prognosis. The results are published in the journal Nature.
A study published in JAMA Network Open has followed 1,340 women with high-risk operable breast cancer. Analysing their lifestyles before, during and after treatment, the researchers conclude that those who followed a healthier pattern - including physical activity, no smoking, high fruit and vegetable intake, and low consumption of meat and sugary drinks - had a 37% lower risk of relapse and a 58% higher chance of survival than those who followed a worse pattern. Although the improvements in absolute risk were much smaller, the authors conclude that "lifestyle interventions may be a safe, inexpensive and feasible adjuvant strategy to delay and prevent recurrence and death from the world's most common cancer".
A study published today in the NEJM examines the risk of relapse in breast cancer patients who decide to pause endocrine therapy to try to become pregnant. The results show that temporarily stopping treatment does not confer an increased risk in the long term, but the authors warn of the need for further follow-up.
A phase 2 clinical trial has analysed the safety and efficacy of adding immunotherapy to traditional chemotherapy to treat a subtype of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in children under one year of age. This subtype of leukaemia, although rare in absolute terms, is the most common in children of this age, and its prognosis in this age group had not improved in recent years. The immunotherapy used, a bispecific antibody that binds to tumour cells on the one hand and T lymphocytes on the other, improved two-year survival from 66% to 93% in treated patients, according to The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).