A satisfying intimate relationship may help diminish chemotherapy-related cognitive problems experienced by patients with breast cancer, a new study suggests. General social support was also protective, but the association was less robust and lasting than a satisfying intimate partnership, which was characterized by fewer declines in both objective measures of cognitive setbacks and patient self-reports of subtle changes such as forgetting grocery list items and being unable to multitask.

YAP, a protein known to help cancer cells survive treatment, behaves very differently in cell culture models depending on how they are grown in the lab, highlighting the importance of mimicking tumour architecture to guide better drug strategies.

Researchers from the University of Seville and PharmaMAR have discovered two natural compounds, patulin and xestoquinol, that inhibit the first catalytic step of DNA topoisomerase 1—an essential enzyme for DNA function and cell proliferation. Published in PNAS, the study reveals a new class of inhibitors with promising implications for basic science and cancer research.

In April 2025, the internationally renowned academic journal The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) (Impact Factor: 63.5) published online a study titled “Non-Risk-Based Lung Cancer Screening With Low-Dose Computed Tomography”, led by Professors Jianxing He and Wenhua Liang from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University and the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease. 

This research, focusing on lung cancer screening strategies, revealed that the non-risk-based (universal) screening approach - unrestricted by traditional high-risk criteria - achieved a comparable detection rate of lung cancer among individuals not classified as high-risk relative to those who were. The findings underscore the necessity of evaluating the effectiveness of lung cancer screening in non-high-risk populations and developing biomarker-based enrichment strategies to refine pre-screening selection in this subgroup.

Embargoed until 23:30 (BST) on Monday 28 April 2025

A highly sensitive bone marrow test could double survival rates for some groups of younger adults with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) by helping doctors identify if they might relapse up to three months earlier.