Oncology & Cancer

Researchers at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a novel algorithm that could provide a revolutionary tool for determining the best options for patients—both in the treatment of cancer and in the prescription of medicines.

Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer globally and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Accurate segmentation of liver tumors is a crucial step for the management of the disease, but manual segmentation by radiologists is labor-intensive and often results in variations based on expertise.

Dr. Allison Rosenthal’s experience facing a leukemia diagnosis while in medical school inspired her to pursue a career fighting cancer. It also gave her insight into aspects of life with cancer for people under 40. Now, Dr. Rosenthal is among the leaders of an effort at Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center to help younger adults and older teens receive age-appropriate care and support. In this expert alert, Dr. Rosenthal shares three topics that younger people with cancer often want to discuss with their healthcare teams.

A research team from the School of Clinical Medicine of the LKS Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) has pioneered the use of a ‘dual immunotherapy’ combination—nivolumab and ipilimumab (NIVO+IPI)—in the treatment of liver cancer patients since 2016.

A survey commissioned by The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center—Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC—James) focused on Americans’ perceptions of testicular cancer. The results suggest more can be done to educate the public about the disease, which affects nearly 10,000 adults in the United States each year, according to the American Cancer Society.

In cancer care, accurate tools for predicting whether a tumor will spread (metastasize) can help patients receive the most appropriate treatments. But existing prediction methods don’t always work equally well for everyone. In particular, Black patients with breast or colon cancer often experience worse outcomes than white patients, despite receiving similar care.

Pembrolizumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with resectable locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma whose tumors express PD-L1 [Combined Positive Score (CPS) ≥1] as determined by an FDA-approved test.

Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment by mobilizing the immune system to attack tumor cells. Major advances, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (notably against the PD-1 protein), have produced impressive results against certain types of cancer, including melanoma and kidney cancer.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells are a promising cancer therapy that are made from the patient’s own T cells, which are reprogrammed to fight their cancer. One of the limitations of CAR-T cell therapy is the ability of these cells to survive long enough to target the entire tumor.

A novel immuno-PET/CT imaging technique has identified and validated a potent biomarker for nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC). The biomarker, CD70, is highly and constantly expressed in NPCs, and CD70-targeted immuno-PET/CT has proven effective in accurately detecting primary and metastatic NPC lesions.