News
Curated oncology headlines from reputable sources, ranked by importance with Claude Opus 5.
Drug-delivering particles aim to breach the blood–brain barrier
Nanoparticle- and exosome-based drug delivery platforms are advancing as strategies to overcome the blood–brain barrier, a decades-old obstacle to treating brain tumours and neurodegenerative diseases. Nature reviews competing approaches that aim to ferry therapeutics across the barrier selectively, potentially improving outcomes for gliomas and other CNS malignancies. No single technique has yet …
Special delivery: bacterial couriers are smuggling drugs into cancers
Engineered bacteria are being developed as living drug-delivery vehicles capable of selectively colonising hypoxic tumour cores and releasing therapeutic payloads on site. The approach could improve the safety and efficacy of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy by concentrating drugs inside tumours while sparing healthy tissue. Nature's feature surveys the current state of the field, incl…
A single-cell lens into the co-evolution of genotypes and phenotypes in cancer
A new review by Izzo et al. in Nature Reviews Cancer synthesizes how single-cell multimodal sequencing enables direct mapping of genotype to phenotype in cancer, revealing mutant-specific vulnerabilities exploitable for therapy. By combining multi-omic profiling with phylogenetic reconstruction, the authors outline a framework for tracking clonal evolution and cell-state plasticity across pre-mali…
Breast Cancer Drug Wins Approval Despite Rejection by Agency Advisors
The FDA granted accelerated approval to camizestrant (Etcamah) combined with a CDK4/6 inhibitor in adults with HR-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer in whom an ESR1 mutation is detected in ctDNA during aromatase inhibitor plus CDK4/6 inhibitor therapy. The basis is the phase 3 SERENA-6 trial (n=315), where switching therapy on mutation detection extended progression-free survival from …
Cancer cases could surge 67% worldwide by 2050
Global cancer incidence could rise by 67% to approximately 34 million new cases annually by 2050, driven primarily by population growth and aging. In 2024 an estimated 20.9 million people were diagnosed with cancer and 9.8 million died from the disease, with roughly 1 in 5 people expected to develop cancer during their lifetime. The projections underscore the need for expanded prevention, early de…
Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Review
JAMA published a comprehensive review summarizing current evidence on the pathogenesis, epidemiology, diagnosis, and management of classic Hodgkin lymphoma in adults aged 18 years and older. The article synthesizes the evolving treatment landscape, including risk-adapted therapy and newer agents, within the context of established clinical practice. It serves as a reference consolidation rather tha…
Osimertinib, Chemotherapy, EGFR Mutations, and Advanced NSCLC
In a phase 3 randomized trial (JAMA, n=294), adding chemotherapy to first-line osimertinib in advanced EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer with concurrent TP53 mutations extended investigator-assessed median progression-free survival from 15.6 to 34.0 months (HR 0.44; 95% CI 0.32-0.60). TP53 co-mutation is a known marker of inferior outcomes on EGFR-TKI monotherapy, and this is the first rando…
Focal Therapy for Prostate Cancer
A retrospective analysis of the National Cancer Database examined utilization patterns and temporal trends of focal therapy for prostate cancer across US cancer centers. The study characterizes potentially inappropriate use of focal therapy in patients with low-, high-, or very-high-risk disease and describes its application in intermediate-risk cases. The findings aim to inform clinical practice …
Active Surveillance and Focal Therapy
A JAMA editorial accompanying two studies questions whether active surveillance and focal therapy for prostate cancer are being adopted on the strength of evidence or driven by prestige, novelty, and reimbursement incentives. Drawing an analogy to “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the commentary argues that key opinion leaders, professional societies, and industry marketing may lead clinicians to embra…
Blood Tests in the New Colorectal Cancer Screening Guideline
The American Cancer Society updated its colorectal cancer screening guideline in 2026, for the first time including a blood-based screening test that detects cell-free DNA. The guideline states explicitly that blood-based tests are NOT a preferred option — they should be offered only to people who decline or have not completed a preferred screening test, because of lower sensitivity for advanced p…