Cancer

Cancer of the oesophagus claims more than 400,000 lives around the world each year. With no efficient, reliable method of screening for the disease, by the time symptoms become apparent, it’s often too late to save the patient.

Scientists have identified genetic changes that may predict the likelihood of breast cancer relapse in women taking a common type of hormone therapy.

The world’s first genetic sequencing of precancerous lung lesions could pave the way for very early detection and new treatments, reports a new study led by UCL researchers.

Immune cells called macrophages are supposed to serve and protect, but cancer has found ways to put them to sleep. Now researchers at the Abramson Cancer Centre of the University of Pennsylvania say they’ve identified how to fuel macrophages with the energy needed to attack and eat cancer cells.

Immunotherapy’s promise in the fight against cancer drew international attention after two scientists won a Nobel Prize this year for unleashing the ability of the immune system to eliminate tumour cells.

Cancers most commonly arise because of a series of two to five mutations in different genes that combine to cause a tumour. Evidence from a growing number of experiments focused on truncal mutations – the first mutations in a given sequence–suggests a new direction in understanding the origins of cancer.

A study by UCLA researchers is the first to demonstrate a technique for coaxing pluripotent stem cells – which can give rise to every cell type in the body and which can be grown indefinitely in the lab – into becoming mature T cells capable of killing tumour cells.

Checking for minimal residual disease early in treatment can help some young high-risk leukaemia patients avoid bone marrow transplantation without compromising their long-term survival.

A Rutgers study has found that a specific gene in cancerous prostate tumours indicates when patients are at high-risk for the cancer to spread, suggesting that targeting this gene can help patients live longer.