Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found that a chemotherapy-free combination of four targeted therapies showed encouraging results in patients with HR-positive, HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, offering a potential first-line treatment option that may be more convenient for some patients and avoids chemotherapy. 

Many cases of melanoma are treated with PD-1 blockade immunotherapy – a treatment that unleashes the body’s own immune system against cancer – which has demonstrated transformative results.

However, most melanoma patients treated with this immunotherapy eventually relapse. Understanding why has been one of the most pressing questions in cancer medicine.

UC Irvine researchers built a mathematical model of tumor immune activity to pinpoint a key cause of relapse: the rate at which PD-1 blockade immunotherapy activates regulatory T cells that infiltrate the tumor and suppress the tumor-killing response of the immune system. The team confirmed this math-driven prediction experimentally.

The findings point toward a promising new strategy: pairing PD-1 blockade immunotherapy with more targeted treatments that prevent immunosuppressive regulatory T cells from reaching the tumor. The model also provides a framework for testing other treatment combinations, offering a fast, cost-effective path to better therapies.

People who take part in screening for colorectal cancer may have as much as 43 per cent lower risk of dying from the disease, according to new estimates published in JAMA Network Open by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Umeå University in Sweden. These findings are based on up to 14 years of follow-up data from the Stockholm–Gotland screening programme.

It’s widely understood that the microbiome—especially microbes found in the mouth and the gut—can have a profound effect on health. In a study publishing in the Cell Press journal Cell Host & Microbe on August 20, researchers report that by analyzing the make-up of oral microbes, they may be able to detect signals associated with gastric (stomach) and colorectal cancer. These findings could lead to the development of new, less-invasive screening tests for gastrointestinal cancers.