cancer

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).

A drug in gel form cured 100 percent of mice with a very aggressive brain tumor. The authors hope that this is a first step towards helping human patients with glioblastoma, one of the most dangerous brain tumors in humans. The article is published today in PNAS.

Between 10-15% of childhood brain tumours are diffuse midline gliomas, a type of tumour that occurs within the brainstem, making it almost impossible to remove surgically. Research published in Science Translational Medicine has used a type of molecule (antisense-ASO oligonucleotides) in mouse models of this tumour to slow tumour growth and prolong survival. The authors hope that the research will reach clinical trials and, in that case, the potential new treatment would be combined with others such as radiotherapy or immunotherapy with CAR-T cells.

Seven studies published in Nature and Nature Medicine look at how lung cancer evolves, with genomic studies of more than 1,600 tumour samples taken from 421 patients in the TRACERx project. The research includes the most common type of lung cancer (NSCLC) and assesses why tumours sometimes recur, spread to other parts of the body or the effects of platinum-based chemotherapy.

An international group of researchers has conducted an epidemiological study to investigate the correlation between fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution and certain types of lung cancer. The authors have confirmed their findings in animal models, according to research published in Nature.

Research published in The BMJ has compared the information on cancer drugs available to regulatory authorities with that officially received by doctors and patients. According to the authors, important information is often omitted. In particular, "none of the package inserts communicated information about the benefits of the drug that patients could expect based on the results of the studies". In addition, doubts raised by European evaluators about the reliability of the evidence "were rarely communicated to physicians, patients or the public," they say.

Un estudio ha estimado las muertes por cáncer que se producirán en la Unión Europea y el Reino Unido en 2023. Comparándolas con las observadas en 2018, estiman que se reducirán en un 6,5 % en hombres y un 3,7 % en mujeres de forma global. Sin embargo, en España aumentará la mortalidad por cáncer de pulmón en mujeres. Los resultados se publican en la revista Annals of Oncology. 

A virological and immunological follow-up confirms that a third patient has been cured of HIV nine years after receiving a bone marrow transplant for myeloid leukaemia, and four years after stopping his antiretroviral treatment. This case of the Düsseldorf patient, similar to two previously documented in Berlin and London, is detailed in a Nature Medicine publication by an international consortium coordinated by the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute and the University Medical Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The patient was diagnosed with HIV in 2008 and in 2011 with leukaemia, for which he received the transplant in 2013.