Emergency department (ED) visits for use of substances, especially opioids, amphetamines, and cannabis, by mothers with dependent children increased almost 5% a year, in contrast to an increase of almost 2% a year among females without children, according to a large study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.260078. These increases were largely in mothers under age 25, in whom rates grew more than four times faster than among other females.

At an inner-city clinic in South Africa, researchers have identified a wide variety of airborne ESKAPE bacteria that are MDR or XDR resistant to antibiotics used as first-line treatments for respiratory and other infections; and resistant to antibiotics of last resort such as colistin and vancomycin. The high HIV and TB infection rates in the country increase the risk of lower respiratory tract infections caused by these bacteria. A related study found similar antimicrobial resistance on incubators and staff handwash samples in a public hospital NICU in the same city.

MADRID, OCTOBER 25, 2026 — Patients with previously treated advanced KRAS G12C-mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) lived significantly longer and saw improved disease control when treated with the next-generation KRAS targeted therapy divarasib, according to researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.  

Gut microbiome-based artificial intelligence models for Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) often fail when applied to new populations due to region-specific variations in bacterial abundance—a challenge known as the "abundance paradox." Researchers from Sichuan Normal University and the Sichuan Institute for Translational Chinese Medicine have developed DS-GAT-CP, a topology-guided graph learning framework that models how gut microbes interact within competing ecological guilds rather than relying solely on individual bacterial counts. Evaluated across six independent cohorts in China and Japan, the framework achieved high cross-cohort diagnostic robustness (external ROC-AUC of 0.9223) and uncovered "hidden" microbial keystone hubs missed by traditional abundance profiling.

Machine learning models using routinely collected health information, such as blood tests, medical history and lifestyle factors, could help identify people at higher risk of several common cancers, according to an international study reported at the ESMO Congress 2026.

MADRID, OCTOBER 24, 2026 – An immunotherapy-based regimen combining durvalumab and the PARP inhibitor, olaparib, demonstrated encouraging long-term survival outcomes for patients with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer, according to new trial results presented by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr Joana Ribeiro, medical oncologist in the Drug Development Department at Gustave Roussy, will present the results of the POP-DURVA clinical trial at the ESMO Congress. Conducted within UNLOCK, a flagship programme of the PRISM Institute, the study evaluated the addition of two immunotherapy injections before surgery in women with localised triple-negative breast cancer. With a strong translational research component, the study also investigated immunotherapy's early effects on the tumour and its immune microenvironment, to better understand the mechanisms underlying treatment response.