Latest Research
All publications from the Cancer3.AI database, newest first.
vNOTES sentinel nodes removal from a remaining cervix.
Badiglian-Filho L, et al
This study demonstrates the feasibility of performing sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy via the vNOTES (vaginal Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery) approach in patients who previously underwent subtotal hysterectomy for malignant disease, leaving the cervix intact. Surgeons injected indocyanine green (ICG) dye directly into the remaining cervix, which successfully highlighted sentinel lymph nodes bilaterally, confirming that prior removal of the uterine body does not interfere with lymphatic mapping. The operative protocol included vaginal wall incisions for bilateral SLN excision, subsequent cervical removal, omentectomy, ureteral identification, and excisional biopsy of suspicious lesions, all completed through the vaginal natural orifice route. The findings establish that vNOTES is a viable minimally invasive platform for oncological staging in this challenging patient subgroup, potentially sparing them from more invasive abdominal or laparoscopic approaches. This is clinically significant because it expands the pool of gynecologic cancer patients who can benefit from the accuracy of SLN mapping regardless of their prior surgical history.
Journal of gynecology obstetrics and human reproduction
Source →Interpretable multiple instance learning for hematologic diagnosis from peripheral blood smears.
Singi S, et al
Researchers developed CAREMIL, an artificial intelligence framework designed to diagnose blood cancers by analyzing peripheral blood smear images at the whole-slide level, integrating information from large numbers of white blood cells simultaneously rather than examining individual cells in isolation. The system pairs DeepHeme, a domain-specific cell-feature extractor, with a novel attention-based multiple instance learning model that learns which cells are diagnostically relevant without requiring manual cell-level labels. When evaluated on three hematologic malignancies — acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, and hairy cell leukemia — CAREMIL achieved area-under-the-ROC-curve scores of 0.999, 0.891, and 0.945 respectively, and could correctly identify acute myeloid leukemia even in cases where cancerous blast cells were nearly absent from the blood sample. A key strength of the model is its interpretability: the attention mechanism visually highlights the specific cells driving each diagnosis and reveals disease-specific morphological patterns, giving pathologists transparent, biologically grounded insights. These results establish CAREMIL as a powerful and explainable diagnostic tool that could accelerate and standardize hematologic diagnosis, with potential extension to bone marrow aspirates, cytology specimens, and liquid biopsies.
Communications medicine
Source →HIF-1α impairs NK cell differentiation-maturation and cytotoxicity in myelodysplastic syndrome via JAK1/STAT5/SOCS2 pathway.
Xu S, et al
Researchers investigated how a protein called HIF-1α, activated under low-oxygen conditions, disrupts immune natural killer (NK) cells in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a bone marrow disorder that frequently progresses to acute myeloid leukemia. Using a mouse model of MDS and human NK cell experiments, the team found that HIF-1α is significantly elevated in the bone marrow and peripheral blood of affected animals, where it blocks NK cells from maturing properly and reduces their expression of critical activating receptors such as NKG2D, NKp44, and DNAM-1. The study demonstrated that HIF-1α also suppresses degranulation molecules including Granzyme B through the JAK1/STAT5/SOCS2 molecular signaling pathway, thereby impairing the ability of NK cells to kill malignant cells. These findings reveal a key mechanism by which the hypoxic bone marrow microenvironment characteristic of MDS allows the disease to evade immune surveillance. For clinicians and patients, this research suggests that therapeutically targeting HIF-1α could restore NK cell function and potentially slow disease progression toward more aggressive leukemia.
Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950)
Source →Disparities in blood cancer survival in the UK 2009-2019: national cohort studies.
Hoang J, et al
A large national study examined survival outcomes for 413,286 blood cancer patients diagnosed across the UK between 2009 and 2019, stratifying results by cancer subtype, age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic deprivation, and rural or urban setting. Researchers found that overall blood cancer survival improved significantly in England, Northern Ireland, and Wales over the decade — by 3.8%, 5.1%, and 3% respectively — but no statistically significant improvement was observed in Scotland. Men experienced at least 3% lower survival than women across many subtypes, and both older age and higher deprivation were consistently linked to worse outcomes. Notably, white ethnic groups in England showed lower survival than non-white groups for several blood cancer types including myelodysplastic syndrome and plasma cell neoplasms, while rural areas in Wales demonstrated higher survival than urban regions across multiple subtypes. These findings reveal meaningful inequalities in blood cancer outcomes across UK nations and demographic groups, providing a critical evidence base for investigating underlying causes and guiding more equitable healthcare resource allocation.
BJC reports
Source →Discordant sestamibi uptake in synchronous parathyroid carcinoma and adenoma.
Wang Q, et al
Researchers report an exceptionally rare case in which a patient simultaneously presented with parathyroid carcinoma, parathyroid adenoma, and papillary thyroid carcinoma — three distinct conditions occurring together in the same individual. The malignant parathyroid lesion unexpectedly failed to take up the standard nuclear imaging agent 99mTc-sestamibi, while the benign adenoma on the opposite side of the neck showed normal positive uptake, creating a paradoxical and potentially misleading diagnostic picture. To resolve this discordance, clinicians performed bilateral internal jugular venous sampling of parathyroid hormone (PTH), which revealed higher PTH concentrations on the side harboring the sestamibi-negative cancer, correctly identifying the true location of the malignancy. Whole-exome sequencing found no hereditary germline mutations, indicating that this was a sporadic rather than a familial case. These findings carry important clinical implications: parathyroid carcinoma can evade detection on sestamibi scintigraphy, so surgeons encountering a sestamibi-negative lesion with elevated ipsilateral jugular venous PTH should maintain a high suspicion for malignancy and pursue en bloc resection. Comprehensive preoperative evaluation combining ultrasound, computed tomography, and venous PTH sampling — as well as routine thyroid assessment — is recommended to ensure accurate diagnosis and avoid the need for repeat neck surgery.
Endocrinology, diabetes & metabolism case reports
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