PHILADELPHIA – The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) presented the 2024 AACR Distinguished Public Service Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research to Franco Cavalli, MD, and the 2024 AACR Distinguished Public Service Award posthumously to Worta McCaskill-Stevens, MD, at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024. Franco Cavalli, MD is president of the Foundation for the Institute of Oncology Research, which manages the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR) located in Bellinzona, Switzerland; the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML); and the International Extranodal Lym ..read more

Secondhand smoke significantly reduced the ability of chemotherapy to kill head and neck cancer cells and increased the cells’ ability to reproduce. The study, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, found that secondhand smoke altered the proteins that carry cisplatin into cancer cells. “These findings emphasise the urgent need for clinicians to consider the potential role of SHS [secondhand smoke] on treatment outcomes and to advise cancer patients and caregivers on the potential benefits of avoiding SHS exposure,” write the authors, led by Lurdes Queimado, from the Uni ..read more

All patients with metastatic breast cancer should have equal access to the best treatments and outcomes regardless of where they live in Europe. The EBCC14 manifesto, agreed at the 14th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC) on March 22 in Milan, considered recommendations to address metastatic breast cancer issues around stigma, registries and real-world data, multidisciplinary care, clinical research, quality indicators, and returning to the workplace. “There are disparities not only across Europe but within countries regarding access to multidisciplinary quality care, information, and inn ..read more

The Cancer Grand Challenges initiative has announced the five global research teams who between them will receive $125 million to address unanswered questions. The winning teams, revealed in March, are addressing four major oncology challenges – solid tumours in children, T-cell receptors, early onset cancers, and cancer inequalities. “Some of these challenge areas have been massively under-investigated. Now it’s time for the teams addressing these challenges to shine and bring the full power of the global team science to bear on the work that lies ahead,” says David Lane, chair of the Cancer ..read more

Survivors of childhood cancer are at a significantly higher risk of death following a major cardiovascular event than the general public. The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology 27 February, found risk of death after a major cardiovascular event in a 30-year-old who had previously been treated for cancer as a child was equivalent to that in a 50-year-old in the general population. “Untreated risk factors have a larger impact on risk for death following a serious heart event among survivors of childhood cancer relative to the general population, and therefore w ..read more

Involving patients as equal partners in choosing between treatment options is particularly important when there is considerable uncertainty about how the options could affect their survival and quality of life. Such is often the case in treating older patients, who tend to be more frail and have more comorbid health problems than the highly selective group of patients on whom the treatment options will have been trialled. Yet it is precisely in this older patient population that efforts to move towards a more shared approach to decision making are having least impact. Siri Rostoft, a specialis ..read more

All patients with metastatic breast cancer (mBC) should have equal access to the best treatments and outcomes wherever they live in Europe and regardless of prognosis, according to a manifesto to be agreed on the last day of EBCC14. The manifesto identifies innovations in breast cancer treatment that bring the greatest benefit to patients but are not equally accessible, highlights barriers to accessing these advances, and proposes steps towards improving access. It has been developed by cancer experts led by the co-chairs of EBCC14, Professor Michail Ignatiadis and Dr Fiorita Poulakaki, who wi ..read more

Despite significant and hopefully promising discussions, graphs plotted using data from studies conducted at global and European levels continue to show a distinctive ‘scissors’ shape, indicating a significant gender gap in academic and scientific careers, which starts at the doctoral level, and widens from there on. In recent decades, the proportion of women among undergraduates has grown, so they are now the majority in many countries, including Italy. On average, female students are more dedicated, less likely to drop out, and graduate with higher grades. The crucial pivot point of the scis ..read more

Stress causes neutrophils to form sticky ‘web-like structures’, making body tissues more susceptible to cancer metastasis. The study published in Cancer Cell, 22 February, demonstrated that the stress hormone glucocorticoid leads to the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), known to drive metastasis-promoting microenvironments. “What’s novel and exciting about our study is that we have discovered that stress hormones can trigger the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps,” Mikala Egeblad, the senior author, tells Cancerworld. “These stress-induced NETs in turn play a critica ..read more

Lowering the dose and adjusting the schedule may help older adults with advanced cancer better tolerate chemotherapy. The cohort study, published in JAMA Network Open, February 15, found older patients with advanced cancer who underwent primary treatment modification had a 15% reduced risk of serious clinician-rated toxic effects and a 20% reduced risk of patient-reported functional decline, with no compromise in treatment efficacy. “Since older adults with cancer are vastly under-represented in therapeutic clinical trials, we hope that this study, along with other emerging research, will assi ..read more