For over 30 years, radiation therapy has been a part of the standard of care for locally advanced rectal cancer patients.
NCI and all five cooperative groups that make up the National Clinical Trials Network have launched a large-scale precision medicine initiative that will match cancer patients with early-phase clinical trials testing novel drug combinations that target specific tumor alterations.
Proven curative regimens containing platinum-based drugs—cisplatin and carboplatin—have become largely unavailable because of a nationwide drug shortage. The institutions that have some supplies of cisplatin and carboplatin are setting up algorithms for rationing their dwindling stocks, which usually means giving top priority to patients treated with curative intent and denying standard-of-care treatment to patients who cannot be cured but who can still benefit from these drugs.
CAR T-cell therapies have been used to treat cancer patients since 2011, but infection-related adverse events remain a significant hurdle. Often, fever is one of the earliest warning signs of clinical deterioration and a potentially life-threatening condition.
To provide a roadmap for accelerating progress against breast cancer over the next 10 years, an expert panel was convened at the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium to identify the biggest obstacles hindering our ability to cure breast cancer and to propose transformative solutions to address these obstacles.
Pragmatica-Lung, the first study born from a broader effort by NCI, FDA, industry, academia, and advocacy groups to modernize the clinical trial process, has begun enrolling patients.
The majority of epithelial ovarian cancer is diagnosed at an advanced stage and long-term survival is low. Since ovarian cancer screening is ineffective, the main focus to reduce ovarian cancer mortality is prevention.
Cancer patients face a sharply higher risk of suicide than the general population, but the strongest risk factors may be mitigated through increased screening for depression, expanded use of psychosocial and palliative care, and improved access to adequate health insurance, according to a recent study led by American Cancer Society researchers.
Academic cancer centers are facing severe staffing shortages after three years of personnel attrition during the COVID-19 pandemic—resulting in depressed levels of patient accrual to investigator-initiated and grant-funded clinical trials.
The National Cancer Institute defines precision medicine in cancer as a strategy that “uses specific information about a person’s tumor to help make a diagnosis, plan treatment, find out how well treatment is working, or make a prognosis.”1
