research study on cancer

What Are Cancer Research Studies?

What is cancer research and why is it important.

Research is the key to progress against cancer and is a complex process involving professionals from many fields. It is also thanks to the participation of people with cancer, cancer survivors, and healthy volunteers that any breakthroughs go on to improve treatment and care for those who need it.

Cancer research studies may lead to discoveries such as new drugs to treat cancer, new therapies to make symptoms less severe, or lifestyle changes to reduce the chances of getting cancer.

Cancer research may also address big picture questions like why cancer is more prevalent in certain populations or how doctors can make existing cancer detection tools more effective in health care settings.

These discoveries can help people with cancer and their caregivers live fuller lives.

Who should join cancer research studies?

When you choose to participate in a research study, you become a partner in scientific discovery. Your generous contribution can make a world of difference for people like you.

As scientists continue to conduct cancer research, anyone can consider joining a research study. The best research includes everyone, and everyone includes you.

Your unique experience with cancer is incredibly valuable and may help current and future generations lead healthier lives.

When more people of all different races, ethnicities, ages, genders, abilities, and backgrounds participate, more people benefit.

It is important for scientists to capture the full genetic diversity of human populations so that the lessons learned are applicable to everyone.

What are the types of cancer research studies?

See below for definitions on the four major types of research and their subtypes:

• basic research
• quality of life/supportive care
• natural history
• longitudinal
• population-based
• epidemiological research
• translational research

Basic Research

Basic cancer research studies explore the very laws of nature. Scientists learn how cancer cells grow and divide, for example, by growing and testing bacteria , viruses , fungi , animal cells, and human cells in a lab. Scientists also study, for example, the genes that make up tumors in mice and rats in the lab. These experiments help build the foundation for further discovery.

Why Participate in a Clinical Trial?

Get information on how to evaluate a clinical trial and what questions to ask.

Clinical Research

Clinical research involves the study of cancer in people. These cancer research studies are further broken down into two types: clinical trials and observational studies .

• Treatment trials test how safe and useful a new treatment or way of using existing treatments is for people with cancer. Test treatments may include drugs, approaches to surgery or radiation therapy , or combinations of treatments.
• Prevention trials are for people who do not have cancer but are at a high risk for developing cancer or for cancer coming back. Prevention clinical trials target lifestyle changes (doing something) or focus on certain nutrients or medicines (adding something).
• Screening trials test how effective screening tests are for healthy people. The goal of these trials is to discover screening tools or methods that reduce deaths from cancer by finding it earlier.
• Quality-of-life/supportive care tests aim to help people with cancer, as well as their family and loved ones, cope with side effects like pain, nutrition problems, nausea and vomiting , sleeping problems, and depression . These trials may involve drugs or activities like therapy and exercising.  

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View a studies that are looking for people now.

• Natural history studies look at certain conditions in people with cancer or people who are at a high risk of developing cancer. Researchers often collect information about a person and their family medical history , as well as blood, saliva, and tumor samples. For example, a biomarker test may be used to get a genetic profile of a person’s cancer tissue. This may reveal how certain tumors change over the course of treatment .
• Longitudinal studies gather data on people or groups of people over time, often to see the result of a habit, treatment, or change. For example, two groups of people may be identified as those who smoke and those who do not. These two groups are compared over time to see whether one group is more likely to develop cancer than the other group.
• Population-based studies explore the causes of cancer, cancer trends, and factors that affect cancer care in specific populations. For example, a population-based study may explore the causes of a high cancer rate in a regional Native American population.

Epidemiological Research

Epidemiological research is the study of the patterns, causes, and effects of cancer in a group of people of a certain background. This research encompasses both observational population-based studies but also includes clinical epidemiological studies where the relationship between a population’s risk factors and treatments are tested.

Translational Research

Translational research is when cancer research moves across research disciplines, from basic lab research into clinical settings, and from clinical settings into everyday care. In turn, findings from clinical studies and population-based studies can inform basic cancer research. For example, data from the genetic profile of a tumor during an observational study may help scientists develop a clinical trial to test which drugs to prescribe to cancer patients with specific tumor genes.

Monica Bertagnolli, Director, NIH; former director, NCI; cancer survivor

Participation in Cancer Research Matters

I am so happy to have the opportunity to acknowledge the courage and generosity of an estimated 494,018 women who agreed to participate in randomized clinical trials with results reported between 1971 and 2018.

Their contributions showed that mammography can detect cancer at an early stage, that mastectomies and axillary lymph node dissections are not always necessary, that chemotherapy can benefit some people with early estrogen receptor–positive, progesterone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer but is not needed for all, and that hormonal therapy can prevent disease recurrence.

For just the key studies that produced these results, it took the strength and commitment of almost 500,000 women. I am the direct beneficiary of their contributions, and I am profoundly grateful.

The true number of brave souls contributing to this reduction in breast cancer mortality over the past 30 years? Many millions. These are our heroes.

— From NCI Director’s Remarks by then-NCI Director Monica M. Bertagnolli, M.D., at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 3, 2023

Stanford Cancer Institute

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Excellence in Scientific Discovery

The Institute's comprehensive investigations extend from the earliest phase of basic discovery to the development of new cancer diagnostics, treatment protocols and prevention strategies

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Key Initiatives

In addition to the six research programs identified in our Cancer Center Support Grant, the Stanford Cancer Institute supports a number of key initiatives designed to foster discovery, application and translation of scientific knowledge. Inter-disciplinary teams of collaborative investigators partner to solve some of the most challenging questions in cancer research. Some of our key initiatives include:

The Stanford Brain Metastases Consortium

The Stanford Brain Metastases Consortium is a unique partnership between scientists, physicians and surgeons from across the Stanford community, bringing together experts in research and clinical care of brain metastases. The goal of the Consortium is to increase the number of available clinical trials and collaborative publications, and to enhance patients' experience through a team-based approach to care.

Stanford Pancreas Cancer Research Group (SPCRG)

The members of this group are committed to advancing research and care for pancreatic cancer.  SPCRG is comprised of an inter-disciplinary team of collaborative investigators from multiple Schools at Stanford.

After Cancer: Stanford Cancer Survivorship Program

After Cancer's mission is    to improve the experience, and outcomes, of patients and caregivers throughout all phases of their cancer journey by advancing survivorship research, clinical care and education. 

Wipe Out Melanoma - California

Wipe Out Melanoma - California is a project focused on primary and secondary prevention research with a particular emphasis on Hispanic and low socioeconomic status Caucasian groups who are at the highest risk for advanced disease. It is a joint partnership with Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai, and part of a larger nationwide War on Melanoma- Federation of States.

Nasopharyngeal Cancer Program

The SCI offers specialized expertise in clinical trials for multiple rare cancers, including nasopharyngeal cancer. 

• Patient Care
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Clinical Trials

Pancreatic cancer.

Displaying 142 studies

Cystic tumors of the pancreas are fluid-filled growths. They are often treated by surgical removal. A safe and effective non-surgical treatment is desirable. Ethanol (alcohol) injection may treat cysts by killing the lining cells of the cyst, and is an accepted treatment for cysts of other organs. In this study, participants with pancreatic cysts will undergo endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) guided ethanol injection of pancreatic cysts. This is a pilot study to assess safety and efficacy.

The purpose of this study is to compare the proteomic markers from gastrointestinal lavage fluid collected from patients with a pancreatic mass to a control group of otherwise healthy subjects.

The purpose of this study is to develop a test for detection of pancreatic cancer by looking at the subject's DNA.

To document impact of EUS-FNA needle size and flexibility on effectiveness of pancreatic cystic lesions (PCL) aspiration, on ability to obtain sufficient material for standard diagnostic testing, and on diagnostic accuracy of EUS-FNA aspirate for differentiation of mucinous (pre-malignant) and non-mucinous cysts.

This is a phase II, multicenter, double-blinded, randomized, 2-arm trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of mFOLFIRINOX plus ramucirumab (Arm A) vs. mFOLFIRINOX plus placebo (Arm B) in 94 subjects with advanced pancreatic cancer, not amenable to curative treatment. Both arms will continue treatment until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

This clinical study is in subjects who are 18 years old or older with locally advanced pancreatic cancer who have not received prior treatment for their pancreatic cancer. The study treats all subjects with nab-Paclitaxel plus gemcitabine for approximately 6 months of treatment. Subjects who complete the treatment will choose, with their treating physicians, what additional treatment should be given: more nab-Paclitaxel plus gemcitabine, Chemoradiation therapy, or surgery to treat the locally advanced pancreatic cancer.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate molecular markers which might be a predictor of pancreatic cancer or precancer by analyzing the secretions (fluid) from a pancreatic cyst, pancreas fluid and tissue from a resected pancreatic cyst.

To develop a resource (bank) of biospecimens and data collected from individuals with pancreatic diseases to facilitate discovery and development of novel biomarkers of risk and early detection, severity prediction, etiology and response to therapy.

A study to collect survival data on patients previously enrolled in Abraxane pancreatic cancer study CA046.

This is a Phase 2 multicenter, open-label, non-randomized study to examine the safety and effectiveness of BPM31510 administered as a 144-hour continuous intravenous (IV) infusion as a monotherapy or in combination with gemcitabine in advanced pancreatic cancer patients as 2nd / 3rd line therapy. The study will enroll up to 50 patients in the US and Europe.

 The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of treating pancreas cysts that connect with the main pancreas duct with injected ethanol using endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and/or endoscopic ultrasound. Past studies have excluded these cysts that communicate with the main pancreatic duct, to avoid burning the main pancreatic duct with ethanol.

The purpose of this study is to compare whether there is a delay or prevention of recurrence or death in subjects with surgically removed pancreatic cancer who then take nab-paclitaxel in combination with gemcitabine compared to those who take gemcitabine alone.

The purpose of this study is to learn more about pancreatic cancer genetics in association with response to drug therapy. Pancreatic cancer has identifiable genetic (DNA) changes, yet for many it is not known whether these affect response to cancer drugs.

The purpose of this study is to test the safety, tolerability and possible benefit of a drug called tofacitinib in patients with metastatic pancreas cancer when given combined with a standard chemotherapy drug called gemcitabine.

This randomized phase II-R/III trial studies gemcitabine hydrochloride with or without erlotinib hydrochloride followed by the same chemotherapy regimen with or without radiation therapy and capecitabine or fluorouracil in treating patients with pancreatic cancer that was removed by surgery. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine hydrochloride, capecitabine, and fluorouracil, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Erlotinib hydrochloride may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Radiation therapy uses high energy x-rays to kill tumor ...

The purpose of this study is to determine if LIF (Leukemia Inhibitory Factor) level is positively correlated with disease progression and CA19-9 level in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients and is a reliable biomarker of response.

The purpose of this study is to determine the safety and pharmacokinetic profile of nab® -paclitaxel (ABI-007) plus gemcitabine in subjects with advanced pancreatic cancer who have cholestatic hyperbilirubenemia secondary to bile duct obstruction.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the side effects and how well the combination of binimetinib and encorafenib work in treating patients with pancreatic cancer with a somatic BRAF V600E mutation. Binimetinib and encorafenib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Giving binimetinib and encorafenib may work better compared to the usual treatment in treating patients with pancreatic cancer and a somatic BRAF V600E mutation.

This randomized phase II trial studies how well standard systemic chemotherapy followed by intensified radiochemotherapy or standard radiochemotherapy preceded by intensified systemic chemotherapy works compared to standard systemic chemotherapy followed by standard radiochemotherapy in treating patients with pancreatic cancer that cannot be removed by surgery. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine hydrochloride or FOLFIRINOX, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill tumor cells. Drugs, such as capecitabine, may make tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy. Giving ...

Purpose of this phase I/II study is to test how well LY2090314 works in combination with different chemotherapies in treating participants with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the progression free survival (PFS) of advanced pancreatic cancer patients with germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations treated with olaparib + pembrolizumab compared to olaparib alone as maintenance therapy.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how well the addition of olaparib following completion of surgery and chemotherapy works in treating patients with pancreatic cancer that has been surgically removed (resected) and has a pathogenic mutation in BRCA1, BRCA2, or PALB2. Olaparib is an inhibitor of PARP, an enzyme that helps repair deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) when it becomes damaged. Blocking PARP may help keep tumor cells from repairing their damaged DNA, causing them to die. PARP inhibitors are a type of targeted therapy.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the NanoKnife System for the ablation of unresectable Stage 3 pancreatic adenocarcinoma (Stage 3 pancreatic cancer).

The goal of this study is to determine if the biomarkers found to be upregulated in tissue samples are specific to PDAC and can be detected in saliva. Saliva will be collected form PDAC and control subjects for comparison. Additionally, to determine if the biomarkers are specific to PDAC or other KRAS driven cancers, saliva will be collected from patients with breast and lung cancer. The saliva collected from these subjects will be studied for the presence of specific protein biomarkers and used in experiments such as western blots and ELISAs.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one ...

The objective of this study is to estimate the R0 resection rate in patients with Resectable Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (R-PDAC) as well as those with Resectable Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (BR-PDAC) independently in response to neoadjuvant sequential therapy of combination nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine followed by stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT).

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the lateral flow assay (LFA) to be used in conjunction with imaging and existing biomarkers in diagnosed or at-risk-for pancreatic cancer patients.

The purpose of this study is to bioengineer a novel vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) to express extracellular matrix (ECM) destructing enzymes to overcome desmoplastic pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tumor microenvironment and assess the oncolytic virus (OVs’) therapeutic safety and efficacy as monotherapy and in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in preclinical settings. This effectiveness will be investigated in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo.

To determine whether the microbiome, metagenome and metabolome of the tissue of the second portion of duodenum of patients with pancreatic cancer are different from that of patients with benign conditions not affecting the pancreas.

The purpose of this study is to test the effectiveness and safety of Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields), in combination with gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel, for front line treatment of locally-advanced pancreatic denocarcinoma.The device is an experimental, portable, battery operated device for chronic administration of alternating electric fields (termed TTFields or TTF) to the region of the malignant tumor, by means of surface, insulated electrode arrays.

The purpose of this study is to develop a panel of primary care controls to be used to compare the pancreatic disease patients who are recruited into the ongoing IRB protocol 354-06.    

This study aims to assess the efficacy of onvansertib in combination with nanoliposomal irinotecan (nal-IRI), leucovorin, and fluorouracil (5-FU) for treatment of participants with histologically confirmed metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

This is a phase II multi-center study of nab-paclitaxel, gemcitabine and cisplatin (NGC triple regimen) as preoperative therapy in potentially resectable pancreatic cancer patients. DISEASE STATE - Potentially operable or borderline resectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma as assessed by standard CT criteria and histologically confirmed. - Staging by pancreatic protocol, helical abdominal computed tomography (with contrast) or MRI (with contrast) required (endoscopic ultrasound is not required). - No evidence of metastatic disease. Lymphadenopathy (defined as nodes measuring >1 cm in short axis) outside the surgical basin (i.e., para-aortic, peri-caval, celiac axis, or distant nodes) is considered M1 (unless nodes are biopsied and ...

The purpose of this study is to develop a blood test to distinguish various causes of diabetes by evaluating patients who have developed diabetes within the last 3 years, but we will also enroll a small number of patients with long-term diabetes and normal blood sugars for comparison. 

Diabetes mellitus is a common condition which is defined by persistently high blood sugar levels.  This is a frequent problem that is most commonly due to type 2 diabetes.  However, it is now recognized that a small portion of the population with diabetes have an underlying problem with their pancreas, such as ...

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of ctDNA status and FDG PET/MRI findings with other clinicopathologic variables and standard staging examinations. We will develop a multivariable model combining ctDNA and FDG PET/MRI biomarkers to predict treatment response and survival. In addition, we will define the quantitative thresholds for early chemotherapy switch in patients who do not respond to first-line chemotherapy.

Laboratory studies suggest that the study drug may stop cancer cells from growing by affecting an interaction between proteins in the cells referred to as cAMP-response element-binding protein and ß-catenin.

The purpose of this research study is to determine the highest safe dose of study drug that may be used when it is given together with a chemotherapy drug to patients with cancer of the pancreas.

The primary purpose of this study is to develop a cohort (biobank of biospecimens and data) of individuals aged 50 and older without pancreatic cancer who are members of kindreds containing three blood relatives with pancreatic cancer, OR who carry a mutation in a known predisposition gene for pancreatic cancer.

This study will assess the efficacy and safety of BL-8040 as a single agent and in combination with pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) in subjects with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

This study aims to facilitate discovery and validation of tests for early detection in subjects at high risk for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). and to facilitate the use of state-of-the-art machine learning-based algorithms that utilize databases and images with the purpose of identifying early stages of pancreatic cancer, as well as people at high-risk.The study also aims to provide a platform for development of an interventional protocol for early detection of PDAC.

Aims, purpose, or objectives:

• Evaluation of quantitative biomarkers derived from simultaneous time-of-flight FDG PET-MRI/MRCP for assessment of response to neoadjuvant therapy in borderline resectable PDAC.
• Evaluate the comparative performance of blood and FDG PET-MRI/MRCP based biomarkers for assessment of response to neoadjuvant therapy in borderline resectable PDAC.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate survival of patients with resectable, borderline resectable pancreatic cancer (BRPC) and locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) separately and as a group.

The purpose of this study is to access long-term quality of life, complications, and implications of treatments on patients who are long-term survivors of pancreas cancer and were treated at Mayo Clinic. 

The purpose of this study is to determine if TH-302 combined with Gemcitabine versus Gemcitabine alone is as safe and effective in the treatment of patients who have first-line metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

The specific aims of this study are as follows:

Aim # 1:  To determine the prevalence of pancreas solid tumor intratumoral microbiota, their composition and diversity in specimens prospectively acquired via endoscopic ultrasound (EUS).

Aim # 2:  To investigate both the oral and duodenal microbiome of such patients to evaluate for similarities and differences.

The purpose of this study is to learn more about the function of CCK receptor in human ACC cells and test the effect of high concentration CCK on ACC cells.  

The purpose of this study is to to evaluate the rate of overall survival (OS) at two years in patients with either borderline or locally advanced pancreatic cancer who receive electron beam intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) following chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

The goal of this study is to establish and maintain a biospecimen bank containing samples of neoplasms, cysts, normal tissue, blood and/or any other tissue or cystic fluid from patients undergoing a diagnostic or therapeutic procedure for pancreatic disease.

The purpose of this study is to confirm the recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D) of zolbetuximab in combination with Nab-P + GEM, determine overall survival and assess the safety and tolerability of the combination treatment. This study will also evaluate other anti-tumor effects, tumor markers and pharmacokinetics (PK) of zolbetuximab, Nab-P and GEM.

The purpose of this study is to assess the best 2-year overall survival when comparing fluorouracil, irinotecan hydrochloride, and oxaliplatin (combination chemotherapy) to gemcitabine hydrochloride and nab-paclitaxel, given before surgery for treating patients who have pancreatic cancer that can be removed by surgery. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as fluorouracil, irinotecan hydrochloride, oxaliplatin, gemcitabine hydrochloride, and nab-paclitaxel, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. Giving more than one drug (combination chemotherapy) may kill more tumor cells. It is not yet known whether combination chemotherapy ...

This phase I trial studies the side effects and the best dose of sirolimus when given together with vismodegib in treating patients with solid tumors or pancreatic cancer that is metastatic or cannot be removed by surgery. Sirolimus and vismodegib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth

The purpose of this study is to assess the safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of nal-IRI in combination with 5-FU/LV and oxaliplatin in patients not previously treated for metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma to select a regimen for further development.

This is a Phase 1/2 trial to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of FG-3019 administered with gemcitabine and Nab-paclitaxel in the treatment of locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic cancer.

This phase 1 first-in-human study evaluates safety and tolerability of SBP-101 in subjects with previously treated pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and will identify the maximum tolerated dose (MTD). In addition, this study will also assess the pharmacokinetic (PK) profile and preliminary efficacy of SBP-101.

The purpose of this study is to assess DNA markers in pancreatic juice and stool for the detection of pancreatic cancer and precancer.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Folfirinox (FFX) versus CPI-613 + Modified Folfirinox (mFFX) in patients with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas.

In pancreatic cancer, targeting the tumor microenvironment has become a promising therapeutic strategy. Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) pathway activation is essential for promoting a fibrotic and inflammatory tumor microenvironment, and FAK inhibitors have demonstrated reasonable anti-tumor activity in the preclinical setting. Furthermore, a maximal synergetic effect was achieved when a FAK inhibitor was given in combination with a PD-1 antagonist and chemotherapy in multiple pancreas tumor animal models. This supports the concept of using FAK inhibitors to reduce stromal fibrosis during checkpoint immunotherapeutic treatment. Therefore, these robust preclinical findings will be tested in the proposed phase I trial.

This is a multicenter, open-label, Phase 1, dose escalation trial to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and recommended Phase 2 dose (RP2D) of TH-302 in combination with gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel in previously untreated subjects with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

The purpose of this study is to assess the safety of a specific treatment regimen (protein-bound Paclitaxel, Cisplatin, And Gemcitabine (GCN)) combined with a device called Tumor Treatment Fields (TTF) in preventing tumor growth in paitents with recurrent recurrent and/or metastatic pancreatic cancer (met-PC).

This is a randomized, open-label, multi-center, phase 3 study of napabucasin plus weekly nab-paclitaxel with gemcitabine versus weekly nab-paclitaxel with gemcitabine for adult patients with Metastatic Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether pembrolizumab (MK-3475 ) can be used safely during neoadjuvant treatment and can improve the body's immune response against pancreatic cancer. Pembrolizumab has been approved for treatment of patients with melanoma but has not been proven to be safe or helpful in patients with pancreatic cancer and is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this purpose.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether oral rucaparib is effective in the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer and a known deleterious BRCA mutation.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether an investigational immuno-therapy, cabiralizumab in combination with nivolumab, with or without chemotherapy, is effective for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer.

The purpose of this study is to establish a cohort of 200 patients receiving definitive radiotherapy at Mayo Clinic Florida for locally advanced pancreatic cancer (T3-4NxM0; TxN+M0), and establish a biobank of 10 ml of plasma (frozen at –80o C) for each patient at baseline (prior to starting radiation treatment), week 2 of radiation treatment and 4-8 weeks following radiation treatment.

The primary endpoint for this study will compare PFS between SBRT + standard chemotherapy vs. standard chemotherapy alone in patients with oligometastatic pancreatic cancer. PFS is defined as the time from randomization to the first of either disease progression or death from any cause, where disease progression will be determined based on RECIST 1.1 criteria and will be documented at each enrolling site with no central review planned.

The goal of project is to target of locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) with a photodynamic therapy (PDT) to evaluate response of tumor.

This partially randomized phase I trial studies the side effects and best dose of disulfiram when given together with gemcitabine hydrochloride in treating patients with a solid tumor that cannot be removed by surgery (unresectable) or pancreatic cancer that has spread to other places in the body (metastatic) and to compare whether disulfiram and gemcitabine hydrochloride may reduce tumor induced muscle loss. Weight loss occurs in pancreatic cancer patients and is common in a multitude of other cancers. Patients with metastatic cancer and weight loss sometimes are not able to receive treatment due to physical weakness or debility. Disulfiram is ...

Test the safety, immune response and efficacy of GVAX pancreas vaccine (with cyclophosphamide) and CRS-207 compared to chemotherapy or CRS-207 alone in adults with previously treated metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma

The purposes of this study are to determine the optimal patient-derived tumoroid (PDT) model, to determine the feasibility of establishing patient-derived tumoroids (PDT) as a platform for a personalized approach for response prediction and guide optimal neoadjuvant and/or adjuvant approach, to determine drug sensitivity, predict the response to chemotherapy agents and radiation therapy, and validate this response in treated patients, and to establish PDT as a platform for a personalized approach to guide multimodality treatment. 

The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness, safety, biological activity, and drug/body interactions of ACP-196 alone and combined with Pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients who have advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer.

This study will evaluate feasibility and acceptability of providing the Dignity Therapy/Life Plan intervention to pancreatic or advanced lung cancer patients presenting for treatment in the outpatient medical oncology setting. Investigators hypothesize that providing dignity therapy to this population will be feasible.

To determine whether a surveillance program consisting of in a cohort of high-risk individuals results in an excess number of detected and surgically resected high-grade premalignant lesions and early stage pancreatic cancers compared to the natural disease development and manifestation.

To determine whether above mentioned strategy results in an improved survival compared to high-risk individuals not under surveillance and compared to the survival statistics of sporadic pancreatic cancer.

To determine patient and lesion characteristics by which precursor lesions can be stratified according ...

Does pancreas enzyme replacement (PERT) decrease weight loss and improve quality of life in patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer?

This phase I trial studies the side effects and best dose of gemcitabine hydrochloride in treating patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine hydrochloride, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing.

The purpose of this study is to examine the utility of 68GaFAPI-46 PET/CT imaging in adult patients with biopsy-proven Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDA) who have no prior treatment for their PDA and who are expected to undergo surgical resection following NAT. 

The primary objectives for this study are to compare each investigational arm versus standard of care (SOC) for superiority in overall survival in 1st and/or 2nd line metastatic pancreatic cancer patients, and to determine which, if any, patients benefit from each investigational arm.

The Early Detection Initiative for pancreatic cancer is a multi-center randomized controlled trial to determine if algorithm-based screening in patients with new onset hyperglycemia and diabetes can result in earlier detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

The purpose of this study is to assess the safety, tolerability, and best study dose of BBI608 when administered in combination with Gemcitabine and nab-Paclitaxel, mFOLFIRINOX, FOLFIRI, or with MM-398, 5-FU and leucovorin in patients who have pancreatic adenocarcinoma that has spread. 

The goal of this protocol is to collect biospecimens in order to prospectively evaluate diagnostic and prognostic performance of MDMs for detection of advanced neoplasia in pancreatic cysts. 

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the ability of [68Ga]FAPI-46 to detect FAP expressing cells in patients with resectable or borderline resectable PDAC. The [68Ga]FAPI-46 PET scans will be acquired after initial staging using institutional standard methods. If the participant is prescribed neoadjuvant therapy, a second [68Ga]FAPI-46 PET scan will be performed within 21 days prior to planned surgical resection. 

The primary purpose of this study is to assess short-term morbidity and disease-free survival outcomes for patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma with limited low volume peritoneal metastasis or positive peritoneal cytology undergoing hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy.

A Phase I, Multicenter, Open-label, Dose-Escalation, Safety, Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Study of Minnelide™Capsules given daily for 21 days followed by 7 days off schedule in patients with Advanced Solid Tumors

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness, safety and patient-reported outcomes of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with 177Lu-Edotreotide as 1st or 2nd line of treatment compared to best standard of care in patients with well-differentiated aggressive grade 2 and grade 3, somatostatin receptor-positive (SSTR+), neuroendocrine tumours of gastroenteric or pancreatic origin.

This study will evaluate the safety profile, tolerability, PK, PD, and preliminary efficacy of BMS-813160 in combination with either chemotherapy or nivolumab in participants with metastatic colorectal and pancreatic cancers.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of capecitabine and temozolomide after surgery in treating patients with high-risk well-differentiated pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Chemotherapy drugs, such as capecitabine and temozolomide, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. Giving capecitabine and temozolomide after surgery could prevent or delay the return of cancer in patients with high-risk well-differentiated pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.

The key purpose of the main part of the study is to assess efficacy and safety of anetumab ravtansine as monotherapy or combination therapy for mesothelin expressing advanced solid tumors. The main purpose of the safety lead-in (dose-finding) part of the study is to determine the safety and tolerability of anetumab ravtansine in combination with cisplatin and in combination with gemcitabine, and to determine the MTD of anetumab ravtansine in combination with cisplatin for mesothelin expressing advanced cholangiocarcinoma and in combination with gemcitabine for mesothelin expressing advanced adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. Patients will receive anetumab ravtansine every three weeks in ...

This phase II trial studies how well sapanisertib works in treating patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor that has spread to other places in the body, does not respond to treatment, or cannot be surgically removed. Drugs such as sapanisertib may stop the growth or shrink tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth

A Phase 1b/2, open label, multi-center, clinical study of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells (CAR-T) targeting claudin18.2 in patients with advanced gastric, pancreatic or other specified digestive system cancers.

The purpose of this study is to understand the interplay of factors increasing susceptibility and expression of pancreatic cancer and melanoma to develop new diagnostic and chemopreventive regimens.

The purpose of this study is to determine the side effects and best dose of erlotinib hydrochloride when given together with GDC-0449, and either with or without gemcitabine hydrochloride, for the treatment of patients who have metastatic pancreatic cancer or solid tumors that cannot be removed by surgery. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as GDC-0449 and gemcitabine hydrochloride, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Erlotinib hydrochloride may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Giving GDC-0449 together with ...

We wish to examine pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell lines to determine what genes are being expressed in the cells that might cause muscle wasting in patients. We will also perform chemical analyses of plasma obtained from these patients to identify substances that might be causing muscle wasting. Finally, we will examine proteins that are secreted by such cells to identify mediator is of cachexia or muscle wasting.

This sample-collection study is open to participants in several categories: healthy volunteers (with or without a family history of pancreatic cancer) and individuals diagnosed with pancreatitis or any stage of pancreatic cancer. All participants will submit urine, saliva and blood samples; pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer patients will also submit tissue samples if biopsy/ies or surgery is part of the care being provided by their doctor. In partnership with Berg Health, LLC, biomarkers will be investigated for potential use in early detection of pancreatic cancer, to determine prognosis of patients, and to find the most appropriate treatments for patients.

The purpose of this study is to prospectively assemble a cohort of subjects >50 and ≤85 years of age with New-onset Diabetes (NOD):

• Estimate the probability of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in the NOD Cohort;
• Establish a biobank of clinically annotated biospecimens including a reference set of biospecimens from pre-symptomatic PDAC and control new-onset type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) subjects;
• Facilitate validation of emerging tests for identifying NOD subjects at high risk for having PDAC using the reference set; and
• Provide a platform for development of an interventional protocol for early detection of sporadic PDAC ...

The purpose of this study is to determine if a blood test called "pancreatic polypeptide" can help distinguish between patients with diabetes mellitus with and without pancreatic cancer.

The objectives of this study are to reduce the rate of bacterobilia driven surgical site infection (SSI) in patients undergoing pancreatic head resection by providing surgical team with NS data in the post-operative setting, and to reduce cost of care through reduction in SSI and improved antibiotic stewardship.

This is a clinical trial to compare two needles used in biopsy techniques to acquire tissue from pancreatic cancer. The hypothesis is that the tissue yield, as measured by tumor DNA and cellular material is superior for Flexible Needle Biopsy (FNB) compared with conventional Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA). Specifically, FNB will increase the proportion of cases in which sufficient DNA is obtained to allow genomic profiling and whole exome sequencing.

Diabetes mellitus is a common condition which is defined by persistently high blood sugar levels. This is a frequent problem that is most commonly due to type 2 diabetes. However, it is now recognized that a small portion of the population with diabetes have an underlying problem with their pancreas, such as chronic pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer, as the cause of their diabetes. Currently, there is no test to identify the small number of patients who have diabetes caused by a primary problem with their pancreas.

The goal of this study is to develop a test to distinguish these ...

The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness and safety of CAM2029 to octreotide LAR or lanreotide ATG in patients with advanced, well-differentiated Gastroenteropancreatic-Neuroendocrine Tumors (GEP-NET). Patients who experience progressive disease in the randomized part of the study may proceed to an open-label extension part with intensified treatment with CAM2029.

This randomized phase II trial studies how well temozolomide and capecitabine work compared to standard treatment with cisplatin and etoposide in treating patients with neuroendocrine carcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract or pancreas that has spread to other parts of the body (metastatic) or cannot be removed by surgery. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as temozolomide, capecitabine, cisplatin, and etoposide, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. Certain types of neuroendocrine carcinomas may respond better to treatments other than the current ...

The purpose of this study is to determine the maximum dose of LDE225 and BKM120 that can be safely given together to patients and/or the dose that will be used in future studies. This study will also learn more about how the combination of these two investigational drugs may work for patients with certain cancers (specifically metastatic breast cancer, advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma, metastatic colorectal cancer and recurrent glioblastoma multiforme).

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and to determine the recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D) of Lutetium Lu 177 Dotatate in combination with triapine.

The overall purpose of this study is to understand the factors that increase susceptibility and expression of pancreatic cancer and melanoma in high risk families.  Individuals who are affected with pancreas cancer and melanoma, as well as those without either cancer who have been identified as 1st or 2nd degree relatives of family members with pancreas cancer and melanoma, will be asked to participate. The participant will be asked to complete a survey about their health and family history of cancer and to give a blood sample for specific gene testing and storage for future research studies.

This randomized phase III trial studies how well early palliative care integrated with standard care works compared with standard care alone in improving the quality of life of patients and their family caregivers. Palliative care focuses on improving the quality of life for patients with advanced diseases and their family members by providing support for relief of physical symptoms, emotional and psychological support, and counseling. Patients who receive palliative care along with their regular care at an earlier time in their disease may experience fewer emotional and physical issues from their cancer. This may also improve the quality of life ...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and preliminary effectiveness of ZB131 in patients with solid tumors where prevalence of CSP expression is high. 

The purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility of performing HIVM in patients with deep space solid tumors during standard course of surgical resection.

This is a Phase I study to understand the biodistribution of MM-398 and to determine the feasibility of using Ferumoxytol as a tumor imaging agent.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and clinical activity of the combination of durvalumab with CV301 in combination with maintenance chemotherapy for patients with metastatic colorectal or pancreatic cancer whose disease is stable on, or responding to 1st line therapy for metastatic disease.

The purpose of this study is to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of AG-270 and characterize its dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs) when given daily by mouth to subjects with advanced solid tumors or lymphoma with homozygous deletion of methylthioadenosine phosphorylase (MTAP).

The purpose of Part A of this study is to characterize the safety, tolerability, and biological effects of CUE-102. The goal of Part B is to expand the safety and immune activity data at the RP2D identified in Part A, and to evaluate antitumor activity at this dose.

The purpose of this study is to assess the ability to successfully create numerous validated patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models from patient tumor specimens obtained at surgery/biopsy via the new Pathology/TRAG cryopreservation protocol, and to generate a large catalog and repertoire of previously unavailable histologically validated PDX.

This study is to define the safety profile and to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and preliminary efficacy of AbGn-107 administered every 28 days (4 weeks) in patients with chemo-refractory locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic gastric, colorectal or pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

The primary purpose of this study is to standardize the collection of demographic, clinical, and imaging data, and biosamples for a large high-risk familial Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarinoma (PDAC) cohort at consortium clinical cancer centers, worldwide.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the dose, safety, immunogenicity and early clinical activity of GRT-C903 and GRT-R904, a neoantigen-based therapeutic cancer vaccine, in combination with immune checkpoint blockade, in patients with advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, microsatellite stable colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and shared neoantigen-positive tumors.

The purpose of these phase I/II trial studies is to analyze the side effects and best dose of liposomal irinotecan and rucaparib when given together with fluorouracil and leucovorin calcium, and to see how well they work in treating patients with pancreatic, colorectal, gastroesophageal, or biliary cancer that has spread to other places in the body. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as liposomal irinotecan, fluorouracil, leucovorin calcium, and rucaparib, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading.

This is an open label, multi-center, Phase Ib dose escalation study of BBI608 administered in combination with either FOLFOX6 with and without bevacizumab, or CAPOX, or FOLFIRI with and without bevacizumab, or regorafenib. A study cycle will consist of daily and continuous oral administration of BBI608 for four weeks (28 days) in combination with FOLFOX6 with and without bevacizumab, or CAPOX or FOLFIRI with and without bevacizumab, or regorafenib.

Patients in the study will be treated with Melphalan/HDS and will receive up to 6 total treatments. This study will evaluate the safety and effects of the treatment.

The purpose of this study is to assess safety of nab-paclitaxel based chemotherapy regimens administered prior to and/or in combination with nivolumab in Pancreatic Cancer, Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) and Metastatic Breast Cancer (mBC).

The primary purpose of this study is to obtain de-identified, clinically characterized, whole blood specimens to evaluate biomarkers associated with cancer for diagnostic assay development.

The ultimate goal of this biobank will be to provide the resource to initiate an exploration of human saliva as a potential liquid biopsy for cancer detection and surveillance.

The primary objectives for this study are: 

• The percentage of subjects who can enroll on an A2 CAR T-cell therapy study within approximately 6 months of documentation of HLA-A LOH status
• The percentage of subjects who can enroll on an A2 CAR T-cell therapy study within approximately 12 months of documentation of HLA-A LOH status
• The percentage of subjects who can enroll on an A2 CAR T-cell therapy study within approximately 18 months of documentation of HLA-A LOH status
• The percentage of subjects who can enroll on an A2 CAR T-cell therapy study within approximately 24 months of HLA-A LOH status
• Percentage of screened subjects experiencing loss ...

THe purpose of this study is to examine the current and (potential) future therapeutic relevance of pharmacogenomics (PGx) testing for a cohort of cancer patients in order to improve quality of life (QOL) in patients receiving clinical care at Mayo Clinic.

This phase II trial studies how well temsirolimus and bevacizumab work in treating patients with advanced endometrial, ovarian, liver, carcinoid, or islet cell cancer. Temsirolimus may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Monoclonal antibodies, such as bevacizumab, can block tumor growth in different ways. Some block the ability of tumor cells to grow and spread. Others find tumor cells and help kill them or carry tumor-killing substances to them. Bevacizumab may also stop the growth of cancer by blocking blood flow to the tumor. Giving temsirolimus together with bevacizumab may ...

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that rivaroxaban is superior to placebo for reducing the risk of lower extremity proximal deep vein thrombosis (DVT), asymptomatic lower extremity proximal DVT, symptomatic upper extremity DVT, symptomatic non-fatal pulmonary embolism (PE), incidental PE, and venous thromboembolism (VTE)-related death in ambulatory adult patients with various cancer types receiving systemic cancer therapy who are at high risk of developing a VTE.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability, feasibility, and preliminary effectiveness of the administration of genetically-modified autologous T cells (CART-TnMUC1 cells) engineered to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) capable of recognizing the tumor antigen, TnMUC1 and activating the T cell (CART- TnMUC1 cells).

The purpose of this study is to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of sonidegib in combination with pembrolizumab in participants with advanced solid tumors as part of the dose escalation phase, and to estimate the response rate of sonidegib in combination with pembrolizumab in participants with NSCLC or pancreas cancer as part of the expansion cohort based on RECIST criteria.

This is an open-label, nonrandomized, Phase 1/2 study in subjects with advanced or metastatic solid tumors. Phase 1 is an assessment to evaluate the safety and tolerability of epacadostat when given in combination with pembrolizumab and chemotherapy. Once the recommended doses have been confirmed, subjects with advanced or metastatic CRC, PDAC, NSCLC (squamous or nonsquamous), UC, SCCHN or any advanced or metastatic solid tumor who progressed on previous therapy with a PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitor will be enrolled in Phase 2.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the safety and tolerability of JAB-3312 in combination with anti-PD-1 mAb or MEKi or KRASi or EGFR-TKI in patients with advanced solid tumors.

This is a Phase I, open label study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of INO-1400 alone or in combination with INO-9012, delivered by electroporation in subjects with high-risk solid tumor cancer with no evidence of disease after surgery and standard therapy. Subjects will be enrolled into one of six treatment arms. Subjects will be assessed according to standard of care. Restaging and imaging studies will be performed to assess disease relapse per NCCN guidelines. RECIST will be used to validate the findings in cases of relapse.

The goal of the study is to create a database of clinical information and a repository of biological specimens for genetic, molecular and microbiological research to better understand hereditary cancer and help develop new therapies and preventive strategies.

The purpose of this study is to characterize the safety and tolerability of combined treatment with mogamulizumab and nivolumab, and also determine the maximum tolerated dose and the recommended fixed dose for the treatment of patients who have locally advanced or metastatic solid tumors.

The purpose of this multicenter prospective observational case-control study is to train and validate Adela’s cfMeDIP-seq based methylome profiling platform to detect and differentiate multiple cancer subtypes. In addition, this study includes longitudinal follow-up for a subset of participants to train and validate the methylome profiling platform to detect minimal residual disease and recurrence.

The purpose of this study is to assess the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics (PK) of CYT-0851 in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancies and advanced solid tumors and to identify a recommended Phase 2 dose for evaluation in these patients.

The purpose of this study is to assess the safety/tolerability profile of E7386 as a single agent administered orally in participants with selected advanced or recurrent neoplasms and to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and/or recommended Phase 2 dose (RP2D) of E7386.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the challenges, behavioral patterns, and preferences of minority patient participation in clinical trials. Also, to develop and validate a personalized clinical trial educational platform to boost participation among underserved cancer patients.

The purpose of this study is to collect blood and tissue samples from patients with and without cancer to evaluate laboratory tests for early cancer detection which may help researchers develop tests for the early detection of cancers.

Falls are common and catastrophic in cancer patients. Cancer patients are vulnerable to falls due to muscle loss. In prescribing exercise in a data driven manner to cancer patients, our hypothesis is this "prescription" for exercise will eventually be demonstrated to reduce the occurrence of injurious falls.

GRAIL is using deep sequencing of circulating cell-free nucleic acids (cfNAs) to develop assays to detect cancer early in blood. The purpose of this study is to collect biological samples from donors with a new diagnosis of cancer (blood and tumor tissue) and from donors who do not have a diagnosis of cancer (blood) in order to characterize the population heterogeneity in cancer and non-cancer subjects and to develop models for distinguishing cancer from non-cancer.

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Research studies answer key questions about how cancer works in the body. They also show what tests and treatments may work best. To help improve cancer care, scientists share the results of their studies with other scientists and doctors. The main way they do so is by publishing them in medical journals.

Scientists may publish their own cancer research, which can be done in a laboratory or with volunteers in a clinic. Studies that involve people are known as clinical trials . Or they may write a review article. A review article looks at all of the published research on a certain topic.

Most cancer research studies are written for scientists and medical doctors. But people with cancer may read them to learn about their disease and treatment options. Research studies use scientific terms that some people may not know. Talk with your health care team if you have questions about research you find.

How is cancer research published?

Different medical journals often focus on different topics, such as clinical cancer research. These journals present new scientific findings and the research methods used.

Most journals publish in print and online. This includes the American Society of Clinical Oncology journals . Journals usually publish on a specific schedule, such as weekly, biweekly, monthly, or quarterly.

For articles published in scientific journals, the phrase “peer reviewed" means that the article has undergone a process in which qualified experts have reviewed it and provided feedback to the authors to improve the scientific quality and integrity of the article. The reviewers were not part of the study. These experts decide whether the research data and results are reliable. Learn more about the importance of peer review in research quality .

How is a cancer research study formatted?

Most cancer research studies include background information, the researcher's methods, results, and the meaning of the findings. Studies published in many journals present this data in a certain format known as Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD).

The IMRAD format allows other scientists to do similar studies to see if there is the same result, a scientific principle called replication. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors supports IMRAD. But some journals may use other names for the format's sections, which are described below.

Introduction. This section explains why a study was done. It also states the research question. For example, "Does this treatment help people with stage IV colon cancer live longer?"

Methods. This is where researchers describe how they answered the research question. To do this, they explain the study's design. This may include how, how much, and how often people in the study received treatment. The researchers also state what result they were measuring. For instance, this may be how long the participants lived without the cancer progressing ("progression-free survival") or if the tumors shrank. They also show how they studied the data.

Results. This section shares the main study findings. Tables and graphics may show the data in different ways. The results section also gives general information about study volunteers, such as the age range and sex. It explains why the volunteers were chosen and the type and stage of cancer they have.

Discussion. This section is also known as the conclusion. It describes what the results mean in relation to the study's purpose. It also looks at the importance of the results and how they may affect cancer research and care. For instance, the results may confirm or challenge earlier research.

What is a cancer research study abstract?

An abstract is a summary that is at the beginning of published cancer research studies. It shares the study's main data. This allows readers to quickly learn about the most important parts of the research. Researchers often share their abstracts at scientific meetings, sometimes even before they have been published in a journal.

How can I find cancer research studies?

There are many ways to find cancer research studies. One way is to visit a journal's website. Then you can use either the search function or the online archive to find a study. An archive stores older studies.

You can also use large, online databases that provide study abstracts. One popular database cancer researchers and doctors use is PubMed . PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Another online database you can use to search for studies in Google Scholar . These databases include millions of citations from a wide range of medical journals. A citation is a reference to a source that provides information. This includes the study title, author names, and journal title.

PubMed and Google Scholar can be hard to use because they include so many studies. You can make it easier by searching for a certain cancer topic. If you cannot find studies on that topic, try including more medical terms in your search. For example, try "renal cell carcinoma" instead of "kidney cancer." You can also include the word "review" along with the type of cancer to find review articles. Be as specific as you can about the topic you are interested in.

Abstracts can often be read online for free. However, sometimes you may not be able to read the full study if you do not subscribe to the journal that published it. Sometimes there may be a way to pay a one-time fee to read a study. For printed copies of medical journals, visit a local library or university.

Related Resources

Understanding Cancer Research Study Designs and How to Evaluate Results What to Know When Searching for Cancer Information Online: An Expert Perspective Evaluating Cancer Information on the Internet

Major Milestones Against Cancer

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Massive study identifies new biomarkers for renal cancer subtypes, improving diagnosis and—eventually—treatment

by Rebecca Dzombak, University of Michigan

A new study led by University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center researchers identifies novel biomarkers in renal cell carcinomas. The researchers' integrative analysis of comprehensive proteogenomic datasets from both non-clear cell and clear cell renal carcinomas builds on previous work, which primarily focused on geonomics, and improves understanding of the mechanisms of renal cell carcinomas.

The findings lay the groundwork to identify therapeutic targets in non-clear-cell renal cell carcinomas. The study is out now in Cell Reports Medicine .

Renal cell carcinomas are diverse, with more than 20 known subtypes, and can be largely classified as either clear cell or non-clear cell type; about 20% of all RCCs are non-clear cell RCCs, most subtypes in this category are very rare and relatively understudied.

Despite having different molecular make-ups, non-ccRCCs are treated with the standard of care devised for the common form, affecting treatment outcomes. Differential diagnosis of non-ccRCC tumors can be challenging due to overlapping morphological features and a lack of specificity in current biomarkers.

But "the standard of care for non-ccRCCs is evolving," said Saravana Mohan Dhanasekaran, an associate research scientist at the Michigan Medicine Center for Translational Pathology who helped lead the new study. "Rare cancers are often left out from major profiling efforts, so therapeutic and diagnostic advances in this space have been limited. Until now, no single center has had enough samples of the quality needed for comprehensive multi-omics profiling, as we've carried out in this study."

The study, led by Rogel's Alexey Nesvizhskii, Ph.D., was an effort of the National Cancer Institute's Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium, a national group of researchers using large-scale proteome and genome analysis to understand the molecular basis of cancers. CPTAC gave the researchers the much-needed ability to combine tumors' genomic and proteogenomic data, enabling comprehensive, large-scale analyses like this study used.

"Our study significantly contributes to this growing effort by the rare renal cancer community by characterizing high-quality, rare tumor specimens, providing a useful public data resource," Dhanasekaran said.

The study leveraged the high-quality samples available through CPTAC to generate multiple datatypes that research fellow Ginny Xiaohe Li, Ph.D., and graduate student Leo Yi Hsiao (co-first authors from the Nesvizhskii lab) processed through various analysis pipelines developed at U-M. It builds on previous work on renal cell carcinomas by focusing on proteins.

"To really understand what's happening, genomics data is not enough. We need to look at proteins," said Nesvizhskii, Godfrey Dorr Stobbe Professor of Bioinformatics in the Departments of Pathology and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics and the director of the Proteomics Resource Facility. "Ours is a landmark study which deeply explores the protein side of non-clear-cell subtype and ties it to the genomic work previously done on renal cell carcinomas."

Nesvizhskii's team previously co-led two CPTAC studies of proteogenomics in clear cell RCC. Those characterized 213 patients (with 305 tumors and 166 benign kidney tissues) and nominated both biomarkers and therapeutic biomarkers for cc-RCC. The new CPTAC study pivoted to focus on non-ccRCC and included 48 non-ccRCC patients (with 48 tumors and 22 benign kidney tissues). Together, these studies have generated a very large renal cell carcinoma proteogenomic database, which will serve as a valuable public resource for future investigations.

The researchers compared proteogenomic, metabolomic, and post-translational modification features in ccRCC to non-ccRCC tumors, including some rare tumor subtypes. They then performed integrative analyses on the multi-omics data to get a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that drive disease in these diverse RCC subtypes.

"The kidney is an amazing organ. It has so many cell types, but that means it also has many cancers," Dhanasekaran said. "We have to look at it from many angles to get a cohesive story."

Better biomarkers, better diagnoses, better treatments

Throwing everything at the problem was worth it. The comprehensive analyses revealed molecular features shared by cc and non-cc RCC tumors, as well as features unique to various non-ccRCC subtypes and indicators of genetic instability, which is associated with lower survival rates.

RCCs with high genome instability overexpress IGF2BP3 and PYCR1. Researchers can now use those biomarkers to validate in independent cohorts and eventually develop assays to detect genome instability, identifying higher-risk patients and allowing clinicians to tailor treatment to the patient's needs.

The study also identified differential diagnosis biomarkers, which can distinguish between malignant and benign tumors. These differential biomarkers could be added to existing panels to improve diagnostic accuracy.

Additionally, integrating RNA sequencing of single cells with bulk transcriptome data enabled the prediction of cell of origin for a range of tumor types and clarified proteogenomic signatures for various RCC subtypes.

Overall, the findings improve researchers' ability to accurately diagnose many subtypes of RCC, including some rare forms, and detect higher-risk patients and shape their care accordingly.

"This paper addresses unmet clinical needs for many patients, including those with rare subtypes that are often misclassified, delaying proper care," Nesvizhskii said. "Identifying these potential biomarkers is helping advance patient care."

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New study offers hope for a rare and devastating eye cancer

After more than a decade studying a rare eye cancer that produces some of the hardest-to-fight tumors, researchers from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have found a treatment that works on some patients and, more importantly, a tool that can predict when it is likely to succeed.

The work, published in Nature Communications, is being validated in a clinical trial involving at least 30 patients. It could pave the way for similar methods designed to overcome one of the enduring frustrations of cancer care.

Because tumors differ, not only between patients but even inside the same patient, a treatment that works on one mass may fail on another, even when both are of the same cancer type.

The researchers in Pittsburgh tackled this problem in uveal melanoma, an eye cancer that afflicts only 5 people in a million, but that half the time spreads to other parts of the body, often the liver. The median survival once uveal melanoma has spread has been less than seven months, according to a 2018 study in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology.

“We chose this because it was one of the only cancers that 10 years ago when we started, there was nothing approved for it,” said Udai Kammula, who led the study and directs the Solid Tumor Cell Therapy Program at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Pittsburgh.

Scientists had long speculated that the reason uveal melanoma is so tough to fight is that something helps the tumor keep out T cells, a key part of the body’s immune system that develops in bone marrow. However, previous studies by Kammula and his colleagues showed that uveal melanoma tumors actually have T cells inside, and they are turned on.

The problem? The cells lie dormant instead of multiplying and reaching numbers large enough to overwhelm the tumor.

The culprit appears to reside somewhere inside the tumor’s ecosystem of cells, molecules and blood vessels, known formally as the tumor’s “microenvironment.” Kammula compares this ecosystem to the infrastructure that supports a city. Something in that infrastructure helps protect uveal melanoma tumors by preventing the critical T cells from multiplying.

“Ultimately, if we’re going to get rid of cancer, we have to get rid of this infrastructure,” Kammula said.

A tool for predicting success

He and his colleagues have had some success using a treatment known as adoptive cell therapy, which was developed in the 1980s by Steven Rosenberg at the National Institutes of Health.

The treatment involves removing the T cells from the tumor, where they have been unable to proliferate. Scientists then take those T cells and grow them outside the body in a lab dish. They treat patients with chemotherapy to kill off the last of their old immune systems. Finally, they reinfuse the lab-grown T cells into the patient’s blood stream and the cells, now in much greater numbers, go on to attack the tumor.

In this treatment, the T cells are often referred to as tumor-infiltrating leukocytes, or TILs.

Kammula said his team has found that tumors shrink partially or completely in about 35 percent of patients who receive the treatment. But they wanted to know why it doesn’t work in the majority of cases, and whether there might be some way to predict beforehand when it will succeed.

To find out, the researchers analyzed samples from 100 different uveal melanoma tumors that had spread to different parts of the body in 84 patients, seeking to examine all of the tumors’ genetic material.

“We basically put the tumor biopsy in a blender that had the stroma [supportive tissue], the blood vessels, the immune cells, the tumor cells. It had everything,” Kammula said, explaining that they then analyzed all of the tumor’s genetic material.

They found 2,394 genes that could have helped make the tumor susceptible to treatment, some of them genes that experts would regard as “the usual suspects” and others that were unexpected. Using this long list of genes, the scientists searched for characteristics that they shared.

The genes were predominantly involved in helping the body defend itself against viruses, bacteria and other foreign invaders by removing the invaders and helping tissue heal. Kammula and the study’s lead author, Shravan Leonard-Murali, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab, used the different activity levels of these genes to develop a clinical tool.

The tool, known as a biomarker, assigns a score to a uveal melanoma tumor based on the likelihood that it will respond well to the treatment ― removing T cells, growing them outside the body, then reinfusing them.

So far, Kammula said, the biomarker has been “extremely good,” in predicting when the treatment will be effective, though he added, “these findings will need confirmation in the current ongoing clinical trial.”

“I thought it was somewhat of a tour de force, honestly,” said Eric Tran, an associate member of the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, a division of Providence Cancer Institute in Portland, Ore. Tran did not participate in the study.

He said that while it will be important to validate these results, “I was certainly encouraged by their studies. And from my perspective, I wonder if that sort of strategy can be deployed in other cancers.”

Ryan J. Sullivan, an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the study, called the team’s work “timely” and said “it is even more significant that they appear to have a [tool] that appears to predict which patients will benefit.”

The team at UPMC is already investigating possible wider application of both the treatment and the biomarker in a second clinical trial that involves a dozen different cancers.

• Introduction
• Conclusions
• Article Information

eTable 1. Patient and Clinical Characteristics of Men With Localized Prostate Cancer, Overall and Stratified by Quintiles of PDI and hPDI Scores

eTable 2. Multivariable Associations Between Each of the Three Food Groups and Risk of Prostate Cancer Progression

eTable 3. Multivariable Associations Between the hPDI and Risk of Prostate Cancer Progression Among Men Initially Diagnosed With Nonmetastatic Prostate Cancer, Stratified by Gleason Grade

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Liu VN , Van Blarigan EL , Zhang L, et al. Plant-Based Diets and Disease Progression in Men With Prostate Cancer. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(5):e249053. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.9053

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Plant-Based Diets and Disease Progression in Men With Prostate Cancer

• 1 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco
• 2 Menwell Limited, London, England, United Kingdom
• 3 Department of Urology, University of California, San Francisco
• 4 Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
• 5 Department of Urology and Population Health, New York University and Manhattan Veterans Affairs, New York
• 6 Real World Solutions, IQVIA, Durham, North Carolina

Question   What is the association between postdiagnostic plant-based dietary patterns and risk of prostate cancer progression?

Findings   In a cohort study of 2062 men diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer, individuals with the highest intake of plant foods in the overall plant-based diet index had lower risk of prostate cancer progression compared with those with the lowest intake.

Meaning   These findings suggest that consuming a primarily plant-based diet may be associated with better prostate cancer–specific health outcomes among men with prostate cancer.

Importance   Plant-based diets are associated with many health and environmental benefits, including primary prevention of fatal prostate cancer, but less is known about postdiagnostic plant-based diet patterns in individuals with prostate cancer.

Objective   To examine whether postdiagnostic plant-based dietary patterns are associated with risk of prostate cancer progression and prostate cancer–specific mortality.

Design, Setting, and Participants   This longitudinal observational cohort study included men with biopsy-proven nonmetastatic prostate cancer (stage ≤T3a) from the diet and lifestyle substudy within the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor (CaPSURE) enrolled at 43 urology practices across the US from 1999 to 2018. Participants completed a comprehensive diet and lifestyle questionnaire (including a validated food frequency questionnaire [FFQ]) between 2004 and 2016. Data were analyzed from August 2022 to April 2023.

Exposures   Overall plant-based diet index (PDI) and healthful plant-based diet index (hPDI) scores were calculated from the FFQ.

Main Outcomes and Measures   The primary outcome was prostate cancer progression (recurrence, secondary treatment, bone metastases, or prostate cancer–specific mortality). The secondary outcome was prostate cancer–specific mortality.

Results   Among 2062 participants (median [IQR] age, 65.0 [59.0-70.0] years), 61 (3%) identified as African American, 3 (<1%) identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, 9 (<1%) identified as Asian or Pacific Islander, 15 (1%) identified as Latino, and 1959 (95%) identified as White. Median (IQR) time from prostate cancer diagnosis to FFQ was 31.3 (15.9-62.0) months after diagnosis. During a median (IQR) follow-up of 6.5 (1.3-12.8) years after the FFQ, 190 progression events and 61 prostate cancer–specific mortality events were observed. Men scoring in the highest vs lowest quintile of PDI had a 47% lower risk of progression (HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.37-0.74; P for trend = .003). The hPDI was not associated with risk of progression overall. However, among 680 individuals with Gleason grade 7 or higher at diagnosis, the highest hPDI quintile was associated with a 55% lower risk of progression compared with the lowest hPDI quintile (HR 0.45; 95% CI, 0.25-0.81; P for trend = .01); no association was observed in individuals with Gleason grade less than 7.

Conclusions and Relevance   In this cohort study of 2062 men with prostate cancer, higher intake of plant foods after prostate cancer diagnosis was associated with lower risk of cancer progression. These findings suggest nutritional assessment and counseling may be recommended to patients with prostate cancer to help establish healthy dietary practices and support well-being and overall health.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men in the US. Plant-based diets (ie, diets incorporating a greater proportion of one’s daily caloric intake from plant sources) are increasingly popular 1 and have nutritional benefits among people diagnosed with various chronic diseases, including prostate cancer. 2 - 6 Current dietary recommendations for patients with cancer and the general population emphasize a plant-based diet high in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. 7

Yet, little is known about plant-based dietary patterns and prostate cancer–specific clinical outcomes after diagnosis. Many studies have reported that greater intake of individual plant-based foods (eg, cruciferous vegetables, cooked tomatoes, vegetable fats) is associated with lower risk of prostate cancer recurrence or mortality, 8 - 14 but single dietary factors in isolation may not accurately capture the health effects of whole diets. 15 Given the increasing interest in plant-based food at the population level, examining whether plant-based dietary patterns are associated with disease outcomes has important implications for public health.

Therefore, we evaluated postdiagnosis intake of plant-based foods in relation to clinical outcomes among patients with prostate cancer. We focused on 2 plant-based diet indices: the overall plant-based diet index (PDI) and healthful plant-based index (hPDI). These indices were developed in 2016 in 3 large cohort studies and have been associated with risk of diabetes, coronary heart disease, and total mortality. 2 , 3 In addition, in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, they were associated with a lower risk of fatal prostate cancer and better scores for quality of life among men diagnosed with prostate cancer. 16 , 17 We hypothesized that greater consumption of plant foods in both indices would be associated with lower risk of prostate cancer progression and prostate cancer–specific mortality.

This cohort study was conducted in accordance with the Belmont Report and the US Common Rule under local institutional review board approval. All participants provided written informed consent. This study followed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology ( STROBE ) reporting guideline for cohort studies. We used data from the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor (CaPSURE), a longitudinal observational study of 15 310 men with biopsy-proven prostate cancer. Participants were enrolled concurrently from 43 urology practices across the US from 1999 to 2018. 18 Participating urologists collected data on clinical and pathological factors, treatments, and recurrence.

A subset of individuals from the CaPSURE study were invited to participate in the CaPSURE Diet and Lifestyle substudy, consisting of a comprehensive diet and lifestyle questionnaire with a validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Invitations to participate in the substudy were sent to all active participants at 3 time points between 2004 and 2016. If more than 1 survey was completed, we used the first completed FFQ to standardize exposure assessment.

Participants with a last clinical follow-up or documented progression (defined as recurrence, secondary treatment, bone metastases, or prostate cancer–specific mortality) prior to completion of a diet and lifestyle questionnaire were excluded. To reduce measurement error in usual diet, 19 , 20 individuals with an extreme or unknown caloric intake (<800 kcal/d or >4200 kcal/d) or missing 70 or more FFQ items were excluded. Lastly, individuals with unknown clinical T-stage or T-stage T3a or higher were excluded. For the prostate cancer–specific mortality analyses (secondary outcome), we included individuals who had documented progression prior to completing the FFQ, since these people were still at risk for prostate cancer–specific mortality.

Dietary data were collected with a validated semiquantitative FFQ based on the one used to develop the diet indices. 21 Participants were asked on average, how often (ranging from never or <1 serving/mo to ≥6 servings/d) they consumed a standard portion size of approximately 140 distinct foods and beverages in the past year.

To compute the plant-based diet indices, 18 food groups were created based on nutrients and culinary similarities, then classified into 3 larger categories of 7 healthful plant foods (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, vegetable oils, and tea and coffee), 5 unhealthful plant foods (fruit juices, sugar-sweetened beverages, refined grains, potatoes, and sweets or desserts), and 6 animal foods (animal fats, dairy, eggs, fish and seafood, meat, and miscellaneous animal-based foods). 2 Intakes of the 18 food groups (servings per day) were ranked into quintiles (Qs). For PDI, greater amounts of both the healthful and unhealthful plant groups were given higher scores (ie, Q1 indicates a score 1; Q2, 2; Q3, 3; Q4, 4; Q5, 5), whereas animal food groups were given lower scores (ie, Q5 indicates a score of 1; Q4, 2; Q3, 3; Q2, 4; Q1, 5). For hPDI, the healthful plant food group was given increasing scores, while unhealthful plant food and animal food groups were given decreasing scores. Scores for the 18 groups were summed, ranging from 18 (lowest plant intake) to 90 (highest plant intake).

Our primary outcome was time to prostate cancer progression, a composite outcome comprised of biochemical recurrence, secondary treatment, bone metastases, or death attributed to prostate cancer. If participants had multiple progression events, the first reported date was used. Biochemical recurrence was defined as either 2 consecutive prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels at least 0.2 ng/mL (to convert to micrograms per liter, multiply by 1) after radical prostatectomy or 2 consecutive PSA levels at least 2.0 ng/mL greater than the postradiation nadir. 22 Date of recurrence was recorded as the date of the second elevated PSA. Secondary treatment was defined as any treatment that started at least 6 months after primary treatment completion. Bone metastases were attributed to prostate cancer if a urologist reported prostate cancer progression to bone or advancement to stage M1b, the patient had a positive bone scan, or the patient underwent radiation to treat bone metastases. Cause of death was determined by the registry data coordinating center and confirmed by state death certificate or the National Center for Health Statistics National Death Index. For analyses focused on clinical progression, participants were administratively censored at their last known clinical follow-up date up until January 31, 2019.

Prostate cancer–specific mortality was our secondary outcome, given the small number of prostate cancer–specific mortality events in this cohort. For these analyses, participants with a last known clinical follow-up date beyond December 30, 2020 (last National Death Index search), were administratively censored on December 30, 2020.

Medians and IQRs were calculated for continuous patient and clinical characteristics, and number and percentage was calculated for categorical characteristics, overall and by quintile, of the index scores. Median and IQR consumption of the 18 individual food groups were also computed in servings per day.

Pearson correlation coefficient was used to describe the correlation between the PDI and hPDI. We used Cox proportional hazards models and cause-specific models to evaluate the associations between the PDIs and the risk of prostate cancer progression and prostate cancer–specific mortality, respectively. All models were clustered by CaPSURE clinical site, with robust standard errors used to calculate 95% CIs. Simple models were adjusted for days from diagnosis to FFQ, age at diagnosis (years), year of diagnosis, and total energy intake (kcal). In the full multivariable models, we additionally adjusted for clinical T-stage (T1, T2, T3a), Gleason score (<7, 7, >7), and PSA (≤6, >6 to 10, >10 ng/mL) at diagnosis, primary treatment (radical prostatectomy, radiation, hormonal therapy, watchful waiting or active surveillance, other); self-reported race and ethnicity; smoking status (current, former, never); walking pace (<2, 2 to <3, 3 to <4, >4 mph, unable), and body mass index. Race and ethnicity were self reported and categorized as African American, Asian or Pacific Islander, Latino, multiple, Native American, White, and unknown; race and ethnicity were used in adjustment as White or other. Race and ethnicity were included in analysis because they are strongly associated with prostate cancer outcomes. Additional covariates, including diabetes, family history of prostate cancer, household income, education level, height, alcohol use, multivitamin use, calcium supplement use, and selenium supplement use, were considered but did not meaningfully change results, so they were not included in final models. Log-minus-log plots and Schoenfeld tests were used to test the proportional hazards assumption, and Martingale residuals and smoothing were used to assess the linearity of predictors assumption. Contrast analyses were used to assess for linear trends.

In secondary analyses, we examined each of the 3 food groups comprising the indices (healthful, unhealthful, animal) in association with prostate cancer progression. We also explored potential modification by walking pace (<3 vs ≥3 mph), age (<65 years vs ≥65 years), stage (T1, T2, or T3a), PSA (<6, 6-10, or >10 ng/mL), and Gleason grade at diagnosis (<7, ≥7). To evaluate the significance of interactions between the PDI or hPDI and these variables, we used separate multivariable models including cross product terms between the index and effect modifier of interest. We then used likelihood ratio tests to compare models with and without these interaction terms. For the covariates that demonstrated statistically significant interactions, stratified subgroup analyses were performed.

All analyses were performed in Stata software version 17 (StataCorp) using a 2-sided α = .05 to assess statistical significance. Data were analyzed from August 2022 to April 2023.

A total of 2891 participants completed at least 1 survey, and a total of 2062 participants (median [IQR] age at diagnosis, 65.0 [59.0-70.0] years) met the inclusion criteria; 61 (3%) identified as African American, 3 (<1%) identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, 9 (<1%) identified as Asian or Pacific Islander, 15 (1%) identified as Latino, and 1959 (95%) identified as White. Participant characteristics, overall and by quintile of the PDI and hPDI at baseline, are displayed in Table 1 . Compared with participants in the lowest PDI and hPDI quintile, participants in the highest quintile of PDI and hPDI had a faster walking pace, lower body mass index, and lower diagnostic PSA and were less likely to smoke ( Table 1 ). Participants in the highest PDI quintile consumed more calories than those in the lowest PDI quintile, whereas individuals in hPDI Q5 consumed fewer calories and were younger than those in Q1. Characteristics for participants in the prostate cancer–specific mortality analyses were nearly identical (eTable 1 in Supplement 1 ). PDI and hPDI scores were moderately positively correlated ( r  = 0.34; P  < .001). PDI scores ranged from 27 to 76, and hPDI scores ranged from 29 to 84.

Servings per day of individual dietary score components by lowest and highest quintile of PDI and hPDI are shown in Table 2 . Participants in the highest vs lowest quintile, consumed a mean of approximately 1.9 additional servings of vegetables, 1.6 additional servings of fruit, 0.9 more servings of whole grains, 1.0 less serving of dairy, 0.4 less servings of animal fat, slightly less egg, and marginally less meat ( Table 2 ).

Table 3 shows hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs for associations between the PDIs and prostate cancer progression. Of 2062 participants who met the inclusion criteria for the primary end point analyses, we observed 190 progression events (170 participants with biochemical recurrence, 7 participants with bone metastases, and 13 deaths related to prostate cancer; there were no secondary treatment events that were not preceded by 1 of the other outcomes) as the first recorded event over a median (IQR) follow-up of 6.5 (1.3-12.8) years after FFQ completion. In the fully adjusted models, participants in the highest quintile of PDI had a 47% lower risk of progression compared with individuals in the lowest quintile (HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.37-0.74; P for trend = .003). In contrast, there was no evidence of an association with the hPDI (Q5 vs Q1: HR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.54-1.20; P for trend = .34). There was no statistically significant difference in analysis in the healthful plant food group (Q5 vs Q1: HR , 0.58; 95% CI, 0.34-1.00; P for trend = .08) (eTable 2 in Supplement 1 ). No associations were seen between the unhealthful plant nor animal food groups with risk of prostate cancer progression.

The sample for our secondary analysis of prostate cancer–specific mortality included 2274 participants, with 61 prostate cancer–specific deaths and 302 other deaths. While there were no statistically significant associations between either dietary index and risk of prostate cancer–specific mortality ( Table 3 ), CIs were too wide to draw meaningful conclusions from point estimates (Q4 vs Q1: HR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.14-0.78; Q5 vs Q1: HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.17-1.66; P for trend = .16).

For both indices, we found no evidence of interactions between age, PSA, stage at diagnosis, or walking pace. For hPDI, Gleason grade at diagnosis was associated with modifying the association of hPDI with prostate cancer progression ( P for interaction = .03). Among participants with Gleason grade 7 or higher, participants in the highest quintile had a 55% lower risk of progression compared with the lowest quintile (HR, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.25-0.81; P for trend = .01) (eTable 3 in Supplement 1 ). There was no statistically significant association in individuals with Gleason grade less than 7. We did not detect association modification by any factors for the associations of the indices with prostate cancer–specific mortality.

This longitudinal cohort study investigated associations of plant-based dietary patterns after a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer with risk of prostate cancer progression. We did not evaluate the unhealthful plant-based diet index, as it would not be recommended for improving health outcomes. We observed an association whereby individuals who scored the highest on the overall PDI had lower risk of prostate cancer progression compared with those who scored the lowest.

Our findings align with previous reports that plant-based diets may improve prostate cancer outcomes. For example, in a study that evaluated PDI in association with risk of incident prostate cancer (47 243 men followed up for 28 years), Loeb et al 16 reported that a higher PDI score was associated with 19% lower risk of incident prostate cancer that went on to be fatal (HR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.64-1.01; P for trend = .04).

Our results contribute to the evolving body of research indicating the positive associations of plant-based diets with health outcomes. The PDI and its subindices were originally developed by Satija et al 2 , 3 to evaluate the associations of PDI with type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. Satija et al 2 , 3 found inverse associations between the overall PDI and hPDI for both outcomes. For PDI, other studies have observed a lower risk for diabetes, 5 cardiovascular disease risk, 23 cardiovascular mortality, 6 , 23 and total mortality. 6 , 23 For hPDI, studies have reported lower risk for diabetes, 5 cardiovascular disease risk, 4 cardiovascular mortality, 6 and total mortality. 4 , 6 These results are important in the context of localized prostate cancer, where men are more likely to die from these chronic diseases than their cancer.

We did not observe statistically significant associations for hPDI. Inconsistencies between the hPDI and overall PDI have been noted by others as well. In a 2022 study, Loeb et al 16 observed associations between PDI and risk of developing fatal prostate cancer, whereas associations for hPDI were only seen for risk of developing localized prostate cancer. A study by Kim et al 23 also reported statistically significant associations of PDI, but not hPDI, with risk of CVD. 23 It may be that because the distribution of hPDI was relatively compressed compared with the distribution of PDI, the variance of the estimator increased corresponding with the association of hPDI. There were modest differences in servings per day between highest and lowest categories of fruit juice, refined grains, and sweets and desserts—all of which are categorized with equal weighting into the unhealthful food group and run in opposite directions for the PDI vs hPDI. Moreover, when looking at the healthful, unhealthful, and animal components of the subindices separately, there was no association with the unhealthful component with prostate cancer progression. Perhaps classifying some of these unhealthful plant foods as “bad actors” in the absence of an established detrimental association specifically with prostate cancer outcomes have attenuated the findings for hPDI. For PDI, we observed that people in Q5 (compared with Q1) consumed a mean of an additional 0.9 to 1.9 servings per day of healthful plant foods (particularly vegetables, fruits, and whole grains), while they consumed 0.3 to 1.0 fewer servings per day of animal products (particularly dairy, animal fat, and egg). These particular healthful foods have been associated with reduced risk in prostate cancer outcomes. 24 - 26 While the similar consumption of fish and seafood, meat, and miscellaneous animal products among the extreme quintiles were unexpected, these results suggest that slightly reducing intake of animal products and placing more emphasis on more nutrient-dense plant-based foods may be advantageous.

Previous studies suggest several mechanisms through which plant-based diets may improve prostate cancer outcomes. Fruits and vegetables contain a variety of phytochemicals, including antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, that have been shown to protect against prostate cancer. 24 , 26 , 27 Plant foods are also a source of dietary fiber, which may promote satiety and regulate blood glucose levels. 28 In addition, animal-based foods (including meat and dairy) have been associated with increased exposure to potentially harmful substances, such as hormones and heterocyclic amines. 29 - 31 High intake of red and processed meats has been associated with increased insulin resistance and insulin-like growth factor-1, which have been linked to increased prostate cancer risk and potentially mortality. 32 - 37 Furthermore, milk and dairy (a primary source of insulin-like growth factor-1), have been associated with increased risk of prostate cancer 37 - 41 ; whole milk, in particular, has been associated with increased risk of prostate cancer recurrence. 38

There are several limitations to the study. First, measurement error is a known limitation of self-reported data, including nutritional information. However, the FFQ used in this cohort has been validated, and the dietary data were collected prior to events of progression. Therefore, we expect measurement error in dietary intakes to be comparable in participants who experienced an event and those who did not. Second, even participants in the highest quintile of PDI consumed meat and dairy products; therefore we are unable to assess the associations of fully plant-based diets (eg, vegan, vegetarian). Third, the CaPSURE registry also is comprised of primarily of college-educated White men, which limits generalizability. Fourth, given that this was an observational study, we could not control for any unknown or unmeasured confounders. Other healthy behaviors and social determinants of health may be common causes of consuming more plant-based food and risk of prostate cancer progression. However, adjustment for income and education did not alter associations. Additionally, we were unable to adjust for prediagnostic diet in this cohort, so cannot conclude that the results are independent of prediagnostic exposure. Conversely, this study has several notable strengths, including a well-characterized cohort with extensive clinical follow-up and detailed diet data, as well as being the first to examine PDI and oncologic outcomes after prostate cancer diagnosis, to our knowledge.

The findings of this cohort study suggest that plant-based dietary patterns may be inversely associated with risk of prostate cancer progression, although future research and replication of our findings is needed. These data are consistent with prior research demonstrating the importance of dietary factors in overall health and well-being.

Accepted for Publication: March 1, 2024.

Published: May 1, 2024. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.9053

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License . © 2024 Liu VN et al. JAMA Network Open .

Corresponding Author: Stacey A. Kenfield, ScD, Department of Urology, University of California, San Francisco, 550 16th St, 6th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94158 ( [email protected] ).

Author Contributions: Drs Liu and Kenfield had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: Liu, Van Blarigan, Kenfield.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Liu, Van Blarigan, Zhang, Graff, Loeb, Langlais, Cowan, Carroll, Chan, Kenfield.

Drafting of the manuscript: Liu.

Critical review of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Liu, Van Blarigan, Zhang, Graff, Loeb, Langlais, Cowan, Carroll, Chan, Kenfield.

Statistical analysis: Liu, Zhang, Kenfield.

Obtained funding: Chan.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Langlais, Cowan, Carroll, Kenfield.

Supervision: Van Blarigan, Loeb, Kenfield.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Van Blarigan reported serving as an advisor or reviewer for the American Institute for Cancer Research and Fight Colorectal Cancer outside the submitted work. Dr Zhang reported receiving personal fees from Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute outside the submitted work. Dr Graff reported receiving personal fees from Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP outside the submitted work. Dr Loeb reported a family member owning equity in Gilead Sciences outside the submitted work. Dr Chan and Dr Kenfield reported receiving research support from Veracyte in the form of analysis of some biospecimens without charges outside the submitted work. Dr Kenfield reported receiving personal fees from Fellow Health outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding/Support: Dr Graff is supported by a Young Investigator Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Dr Loeb is supported by the New York State Department of Health, and by Tricia and Michael Berns. Dr Chan is supported by the Steven & Christine Burd Safeway Distinguished Professorship. Dr Kenfield is supported by the Helen Diller Family Chair in Population Science for Urologic Cancer. The Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor (CaPSURE) has been supported by grants from the Department of Defense (grant No. W81XWH-13-2-0074 and W81XWH-04-1-0850), Prostate Cancer Foundation, TAP Pharmaceuticals, National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Support (grant No. P30 CA 82103-18), and the Goldberg Benioff Program in Translational Cancer Biology.

Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Data Sharing Statement: See Supplement 2 .

Additional Contributions: We thank the CaPSURE participants for making this research possible, and the research team who diligently worked on ensuring data quality.

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Some researchers said the advice did not go far enough. The panel also declined to recommend extra scans for women with dense breast tissue.

By Roni Caryn Rabin

Citing rising breast cancer rates in young women, an expert panel on Tuesday recommended starting regular mammography screening at age 40, reversing longstanding and controversial guidance that most women wait until 50.

The panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, finalized a draft recommendation made public last year . The group issues influential advice on preventive health, and its recommendations usually are widely adopted in the United States.

In 2009, the task force raised the age for starting routine mammograms to 50 from 40, sparking wide controversy. At the time, researchers were concerned that earlier screening would do more harm than good, leading to unnecessary treatment in younger women, including alarming findings that lead to anxiety-producing procedures that are invasive but ultimately unnecessary.

But now breast cancer rates among women in their 40s are on the rise, increasing by 2 percent a year between 2015 and 2019, said Dr. John Wong, vice chair of the task force. The panel continues to recommend screening every two years for women at average risk of breast cancer, though many patients and providers prefer annual screening.

“There is clear evidence that starting screening every other year at age 40 provides sufficient benefit that we should recommend it for all women in this country to help them live longer and have a better quality of life,” said Dr. Wong, a primary care clinician at Tufts Medical Center who is the director of comparative effectiveness research for the Tufts Clinical Translational Science Institute.

The recommendations have come under harsh criticism from some women’s health advocates, including Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, who say the advice does not go far enough.

In a letter to the task force in June , they said that the guidance continued to “fall short of the science, create coverage gaps, generate uncertainty for women and their providers, and exacerbate health disparities.”

Weighing in again on a hotly debated topic, the task force also said there was not enough evidence to endorse extra scans, such as ultrasounds or magnetic resonance imaging, for women with dense breast tissue.

That means that insurers do not have to provide full coverage of additional screening for these women, whose cancers can be missed by mammograms alone and who are at higher risk for breast cancer to begin with. About half of all women aged 40 and older fall into this category.

In recent years, more mammography providers have been required by law to inform women when they have dense breast tissue and to tell them that mammography may be an insufficient screening tool for them.

Beginning in September, all mammography centers in the United States will be required to give patients that information.

Doctors often prescribe additional or “supplementary” scans for these patients. But these patients frequently find they have to pay all or some of the charges themselves, even when the additional tests are performed as part of preventive care, which under law should be offered without cost.

Medicare, the government health plan for older Americans, does not cover the additional scans. In the private insurance market, coverage is scattershot, depending on state laws, the type of plan and the plan’s design, among other factors.

The task force sets the standards for what preventive care services must be covered by law by health insurers at no cost to patients.

The panel’s decision not to endorse the extra scans has significant implications for patients, said Robert Traynham, a spokesman for AHIP, the association that represents health insurance companies.

“What that means for coverage is that there is no mandate to cover these specific screenings for women with dense breasts at zero-dollar cost-sharing,” he said.

While some employers may choose to have their health insurance plans do so, it is not required by law, Mr. Traynham said.

Kathleen Costello, a retiree in Southern California who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 when she was 59, said she was convinced that mammograms missed her cancer for many years.

She underwent screening annually, and every year she received a letter saying that she was cancer-free. The letters also told her that she had dense breast tissue and that additional screening was available but not covered by insurance.

Six months after an all-clear mammogram in 2016, she told her doctor that her right breast felt stiff. The doctor ordered a mammogram and an ultrasound.

“In 30 seconds, the ultrasound found the cancer,” Ms. Costello said in an interview, adding that she knew because “the technician blanched and left the room.”

The mass was four centimeters in size, Ms. Costello added: “It’s hard for me to accept that it grew in six months from undetectable to four centimeters.”

But Dr. Wong, of the task force, said there was no scientific evidence to prove that supplemental imaging, by either M.R.I. or ultrasound, reduces breast cancer progression and extends life for women with dense breast tissue.

There is ample evidence, on the other hand, that supplemental screenings may lead to frequent false-positive findings and to biopsies, contributing to stress and unnecessary invasive procedures.

“It’s tragic,” Dr. Wong said. “We are as frustrated as women are. They deserve to know whether supplemental screenings would be helpful.”

But medical organizations like the American College of Radiology endorse supplemental screening for women with dense breast tissue. There is research showing that ultrasound in conjunction with mammography does detect additional cancers in patients with dense tissue, said Dr. Stamatia Destounis, chair of the college’s breast imaging commission.

For women with dense breasts who are at average risk of breast cancer, recent research indicates that M.R.I. is the best supplemental scan, Dr. Destounis said, “with far better cancer detection and more favorable positive predictive values.”

The college also recommends annual screening for women at average cancer risk, rather than screening every two years as recommended by the panel. The radiologists group is pressing for a recommendation that all women should be assessed for breast cancer risk before age 25, so that women at high risk can start screening even before they turn 40.

Growing evidence shows that Black, Jewish and other minority women develop breast cancer and die from it before age 50 more frequently than do other women, Dr. Destounis noted.

Trans men who have not had mastectomies must continue to be screened for breast cancer, she added, and trans women, whose hormone use puts them at greater risk for breast cancer than the average man, should discuss screening with their doctor.

While the panel’s advice to start screening at age 40 is “an improvement,” Dr. Destounis said, the final recommendations “do not go far enough to save women’s lives.”

Roni Caryn Rabin is a Times health reporter focused on maternal and child health, racial and economic disparities in health care, and the influence of money on medicine. More about Roni Caryn Rabin

The Fight Against Breast Cancer

Citing rising breast cancer rates in young women, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended starting regular mammography screening at age 40 , reversing longstanding guidance that most women wait until 50.

Clinics around the United States are starting to offer patients a new service: having their mammograms read not just by a radiologist, but also by an A.I. model .

Risk calculators can offer a more personalized picture of an individual patient’s breast cancer risk. But experts warn that the results need to be interpreted  with the help of a doctor.

We asked doctors to weigh in on the new mammograms guidelines and how younger women can understand and mitigate their breast cancer risk .

Scientists have long known that dense breast tissue  is linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. A recent study adds a new twist .

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Oncologists' meetings with drug reps don't help cancer patients live longer

Sydney Lupkin

Drug companies often do one-on-one outreach to doctors. A new study finds these meetings with drug reps lead to more prescriptions for cancer patients, but not longer survival. Chris Hondros/Getty Images hide caption

Drug companies often do one-on-one outreach to doctors. A new study finds these meetings with drug reps lead to more prescriptions for cancer patients, but not longer survival.

Pharmaceutical company reps have been visiting doctors for decades to tell them about the latest drugs. But how does the practice affect patients? A group of economists tried to answer that question.

When drug company reps visit doctors, it usually includes lunch or dinner and a conversation about a new drug. These direct-to-physician marketing interactions are tracked as payments in a public database, and a new study shows the meetings work. That is, doctors prescribe about five percent more oncology drugs following a visit from a pharmaceutical representative, according to the new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research this month.

But the researchers also found that the practice doesn't make cancer patients live longer.

"It does not seem that this payment induces physicians to switch to drugs with a mortality benefit relative to the drug the patient would have gotten otherwise," says study author Colleen Carey , an assistant professor of economics and public policy at Cornell University.

For their research, she and her colleagues used Medicare claims data and the Open Payments database , which tracks drug company payments to doctors.

While the patients being prescribed these new cancer drugs didn't live longer, Carey also points out that they didn't live shorter lives either. It was about equal.

The pharmaceutical industry trade group, which is known as PhRMA, has a code of conduct for how sales reps should interact with doctors. The code was most recently updated in 2022, says Jocelyn Ulrich, the group's vice president of policy and research .

"We're ensuring that there is a constant attention from the industry and ensuring that these are very meaningful and important interactions and that they're compliant," she explains.

The code says that if drug reps are buying doctors a meal, it must be modest and can't be part of an entertainment or recreational event. The goal should be education.

Ulrich also points out that cancer deaths in the U.S. have declined by 33 percent since the 1990s , and new medicines are a part of that.

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• Published: 19 April 2022

Focus Issue: The Future Of Cancer Research

Nature Medicine volume  28 ,  page 601 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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New treatments and technologies offer exciting prospects for cancer research and care, but their global impact rests on widespread implementation and accessibility.

Cancer care has advanced at an impressive pace in recent years. New insights into tumor immunology and biology, combined with advances in artificial intelligence, nano tools, genetic engineering and sequencing — to name but a few — promise ever-more-powerful capabilities in the prevention, diagnosis and personalized treatment of cancer. How do we harness and build on these advances? How do we make them work in different global settings? In this issue, we present a Focus dedicated to the future of cancer research, in which we take stock of progress and explore ways to deliver research and care that is innovative, sustainable and patient focused.

This year brought news that two of the first patients with leukemia to receive chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell treatment remain in remission more than a decade later . Writing in this issue, Carl June — who helped to treat these first patients — and colleagues reflect on how early transplant medicine laid a solid foundation for CAR T cell development in blood cancers, and how this is now paving the way for the use of engineered cell therapies in solid cancers. In a noteworthy step toward this goal, Haas and colleagues present results of a phase 1 trial of CAR T cells in metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer — a disease that has seen relatively few new treatment options in recent years.

Up to now, CAR T cells have been used only in the context of relapsed or refractory hematological malignancies, but in this issue, Neelapu et al . present phase 2 study data that suggest CAR T cell therapy could be beneficial when used earlier in certain high-risk patients. In addition, prospective data from van den Brink et al . support a role for the gut microbiome composition in CAR T cell therapy outcomes, highlighting new avenues of research to help maximize therapeutic benefit.

Although the idea that the gut microbiome influences CAR T cell therapy outcomes may be relatively new, it has been known for some time that it has a role in the response to checkpoint-inhibitor immunotherapy. A plethora of microbe-targeting therapies are now under investigation for cancer treatment; in this issue, Pal and colleagues describe one such strategy — whereby the combination of a defined microbial supplement with checkpoint blockade led to improved responses in patients with advanced kidney cancer. In their Review, Jennifer Wargo and colleagues take stock of the latest research in this field, and predict that microbial targeting could become a pillar of personalized cancer care over the next decade.

The theme for this year’s World Cancer Day was ‘Close the care gap’ — a message that is woven through several pieces in this issue. Early detection strategies have enormous potential to make a difference in this area; reviewing the latest advances, Rebecca Fitzgerald and colleagues ask who should be tested, and how — and outline their vision for personalized, risk-based screening, keeping in mind practicality and clinical implementation. Journalist Carrie Arnold reports on an emerging strategy known as ‘theranostics’ that aims to both diagnose and treat cancers in a unified approach, highlighting the growing commercial interest in this field. Of course, commercial interest does not equate to widespread availability or equal access to new therapies, and increasingly sophisticated technologies — although beneficial for some — can serve to widen existing inequalities.

Pediatric cancers lag far behind adult cancers in terms of drug development and approval. Nancy Goodman, a patient advocate whose son died from a childhood cancer, argues that market failures are largely to blame for the gap — but that legislative changes can correct this. Although in some cases there is a strong mechanistic rationale for testing promising adult cancer therapies or combinations in children, translational research is also needed to identify new therapeutic targets — such as the approach taken by Behjati and colleagues , which sheds new light on the molecular characteristics of an aggressive form of infant leukemia.

Meanwhile, for adult cancers, countless new therapeutic modalities are on the horizon , and drug approvals based on genomic biomarkers have accelerated in recent years. Unfortunately, their implementation into routine clinical care is progressing at a much slower pace. In their Perspective, Emile Voest and colleagues point out that bridging this gap will require investment in health infrastructure, as well as in education and decision-support tools, among other things.

Perhaps the most striking gap is that between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries, not only in terms of cancer survival outcomes but also in terms of resources and infrastructure for impactful research. In their Perspective, CS Pramesh and colleagues outline their top priorities for cancer research in low- and middle-income countries, arguing that cancer research must be regionally relevant and geared toward reducing the number of patients diagnosed with advanced disease. Practicality is key — a sentiment echoed by Bishal Gyawali and Christopher Booth, who call for a “ common sense revolution ” in oncology, and regulatory policies and trial designs that serve patients better.

To realize this goal, clinical trial endpoints and outcome measures should be designed to minimize the burden on patients and maximize the potential for improving on the standard of care. This should go beyond survival outcomes; systemic effects, including cachexia and pain, have a major impact on quality of life and mental health during and after treatment. Two articles in this issue highlight the enormous psychological burden associated with a cancer diagnosis; increased risks of depression, self-harm and suicide emphasize the need for psychosocial interventions and a holistic approach to treatment.

As noted by members of the Bloomberg New Economy International Cancer Coalition in their Comment , the widespread adoption of telemedicine and remote monitoring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic could, if retained, help to make cancer trials more patient centered. Therefore, as health systems and research infrastructures adapt to the ongoing pandemic, there exists an unprecedented opportunity to reshape the landscape of cancer research.

We at Nature Medicine are committed to helping shape this transformation. We are issuing a call for research papers that utilize innovative approaches to address current challenges in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment — both clinical trials and population-based studies with global implications. Readers can find more information about publishing clinical research in Nature Medicine at https://www.nature.com/nm/clinicalresearch .

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It may be safe for some to wait 15 years for repeat colonoscopy, study suggests

New research suggests patients with an average risk of colon cancer may only need to undergo a colonoscopy screening every 15 years instead of the recommended 10. 

Swedish researchers found that waiting an extra five years after a first negative colonoscopy carried about the same risk of later having a colorectal diagnosis or dying from the disease as getting screened every 10 years. Extending screening time could reduce “unnecessary invasive examinations,” according to the study published Thursday in JAMA Oncology. 

Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cancer diagnosed in the U.S. and the second most deadly behind lung cancer. The American Cancer Society recommends that screening begin at age 45 for people who don’t have a family history of colorectal cancer or other risk factors, such as inflammatory bowel disease.

In an editorial accompanying the new study, gastroenterologists suggested that future screening guidelines may safely be prolonged for some people, noting that “15 has the potential to be the new 10.”

While rates are going down among people over 50, colorectal cancer diagnoses are on the rise among younger people , opening up a potentially large new group of people who may require colonoscopies. 

Doctors are grappling with how to best allocate appointments. 

“We do not have enough gastroenterology doctors to do a colonoscopy every 10 years in everyone over 50,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, the Bloomberg distinguished professor of oncology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, who was not associated with the new research. 

For the new study, researchers looked at national registry data of more than 110,000 people whose first colonoscopy had a negative result for colorectal cancer. They compared these people with more than 1 million in a control group. 

The average age in both groups was 59 years, and about 60% of the patients were female. Taking family history into account, they found that after having a first negative colonoscopy, the risk of later having a colorectal cancer diagnosis or dying from the disease was about the same among people who had a colonoscopy every 10 years and those who stretched it to 15. 

They estimated waiting an extra five years between colonoscopies would miss two colorectal cancer cases, and cause one colorectal cancer-related death, for every 1,000 people, while potentially saving 1,000 colonoscopies for other patients. 

Employing cheaper, less invasive screening methods 10 to 15 years after a negative colonoscopy could greatly reduce the number of missed screenings, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Mahdi Fallah, head of the Risk Adapted Cancer Prevention Group at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. 

“The best screening test is the one that is actually done. So, if a test like colonoscopy is unaffordable for a person, an alternative cheaper valid test is much better than no test at all,” said Fallah, who is also a visiting professor in the department of clinical sciences at Lund University in Sweden.

More diverse population

The research was conducted in Sweden, which has a mostly white population and a health care system that looks very different from that of the U.S. The national health care system also collects information on the family health history of its citizens, meaning the researchers could be sure those who reported no colorectal cancer in their family were correct. 

“It would be really hard to apply these findings to the U.S.,” said Dr. Cassandra Fritz, a gastroenterologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “When we ask patients about colorectal cancer in first-degree relatives, most people don’t know.” Fritz was not involved with the new study.

The U.S. is also much more racially and ethnically diverse, but the research does provide important context that will help doctors understand how they can best delegate their limited resources, Fritz added. 

“We need to think about how we can potentially save resources and impact more people with the resources we have,” said Dr. Andrew Chan, a gastroenterologist and director of epidemiology at Massachusetts General Cancer Center in Boston and a co-author of the JAMA editorial.

The proportion of colorectal cancer that occurred in people under age 55 doubled from 1995 to 2019, from 11% to 20%. But the total number of cases in this population is still relatively low. 

“Once you get younger than 50, the incidents of colorectal cancer are probably not going to require screening everyone. The risk benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost,” Dr. Robert Bresalier, professor of medicine in the department of gastroenterology hepatology and nutrition at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Bresalier was not involved with the new research.

Latest news on colon cancer

• A new way to screen for colon cancer may be on the horizon, study suggests.
• A new type of bacteria was found in 50% of colon cancers. Many were aggressive cases.
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That only goes for people without a family history, he added. People who have a parent or sibling who has had colorectal cancer should begin screening 10 years before that parent or sibling was diagnosed, Brawley said. 

Other means of screening, mainly stool tests, have been honed to be more precise in recent years. Fecal occult blood tests detect blood in the stool, which can be a warning sign of colon polyps or cancer. FIT-DNA tests, such as Cologuard, detect altered DNA in the stool, which could indicate cancer, and are about 90% effective at detecting cancer, but are less effective at detecting precancerous polyps. 

These tests are noninvasive and relatively cheap compared to colonoscopy screening. The catch is, they need to be done more often — every one to three years — than colonoscopy. If the test is positive, the person should get a colonoscopy, which could trigger getting one sooner than every 10 years. 

Still, the tests could be a good option for cutting down on the number of colonoscopies given after a negative first screening, Chan said. 

“It is important to get screened, but there is a finite number of resources to screen people,” he said. “To screen as many people as we can, we need to make choices about what type of screening we’re doing and how often we’re doing it.”

Better screening in the U.S. will likely be more tailored to risk factors other than age, which experts don’t yet know much about, Bresalier said. 

“One size may not fit all. We know a lot about the genetics of colorectal cancer, but most of that research was done in white people. There are potential differences among men and women and among different ethnicities,” he said. “We may get to a point where we get to risk-based intervals even in normal risk people, based on these other factors.” 

Warning signs of colon cancer

Symptoms of colorectal cancer often don’t show up until later stages and can be difficult to differentiate from other, less serious conditions.

“You can’t rely on the symptoms,” Chan said. “Many people don’t have symptoms at all and that highlights how important screenings are.” 

Having blood in bowel movements, which can appear as red or black, a change in how often you go, abdominal pain and weight loss can all be warning signs of colorectal cancer — and they can also be signs of irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease and a host of other less-serious issues. 

Nonetheless, people with new symptoms should make an appointment to see a doctor, Fritz said. 

Anyone over age 45 should start getting screened. What that looks like may be determined by where you live. 

“In some areas, it’s more feasible to get a colonoscopy than in others. In some areas, it might be more realistic to get a stool-based test,” said Chan. 

This includes people living in rural areas or areas without access to a gastroenterologist. For those who are underinsured or uninsured, Fritz said it is possible to pay cash for a stool-based test, though a positive stool test will require a colonoscopy later on.

Something everyone should do is understand their risk, Fritz said. 

“A lot of people avoid having conversations about bowel movements, but it’s really important to talk to your family so you know if you are at high risk,” she said. 

Kaitlin Sullivan is a contributor for NBCNews.com who has worked with NBC News Investigations. She reports on health, science and the environment and is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.

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Researchers develop a nanoparticle that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier

by University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine

Researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have developed a nanoparticle that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Their goal is to kill primary breast cancer tumors and brain metastases in one treatment, and their research shows the method can shrink breast and brain tumors in laboratory studies.

Brain metastases, as these secondary tumors are called, most commonly arise from solid tumors like breast, lung and colon cancer and are often associated with a poor prognosis. When cancer breaches the brain, it can be difficult for treatment to follow, in part because of the blood-brain barrier , a near-impenetrable membrane that separates the brain from the rest of the body.

The Sylvester team's nanoparticle may one day be used to treat the metastases with the added benefit of treating the primary tumor at the same time, according to Shanta Dhar, Ph.D., an associate professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and assistant director of Technology and Innovation at Sylvester, who led the study. She is the senior author of a paper published May 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

By loading the particle with two prodrugs that target mitochondria, the energy production center of the cell, the researchers showed that their method could shrink breast and brain tumors in preclinical studies.

"I always say nanomedicine is the future, but of course we have already been in that future," said Dhar, referring to commercially available COVID-19 vaccines, which use nanoparticles in their formulation. "Nanomedicine is definitely also the future for cancer therapeutics."

The new method uses a nanoparticle made of a biodegradable polymer , previously developed by Dhar's team, coupled with two drugs also developed in her lab that take aim at cancer's energy sources. Because cancer cells often have a different form of metabolism than healthy cells, stifling their metabolism can be an effective way to kill tumors without harming other tissues.

One of these drugs is a modified version of a classic chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, which kills cancer cells by damaging DNA in rapidly growing cells, effectively halting their growth. But tumor cells can repair their DNA, sometimes leading to cisplatin resistance.

Dhar's team modified the drug to shift its target from nuclear DNA, the DNA that makes up our chromosomes and genome, to mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are our cells' energy sources and contain their own, much smaller genomes—and, importantly for cancer therapeutic purposes, they don't have the same DNA-repair machinery that our larger genomes do.

Because cancer cells can switch between different energy sources to sustain their growth and proliferation, the researchers combined their modified cisplatin, which they call Platin-M and attacks the energy-generating process known as oxidative phosphorylation , with another drug they developed, Mito-DCA , that specifically targets a mitochondrial protein known as a kinase and inhibits glycolysis, a different kind of energy generation.

Dhar said it was a long route to develop a nanoparticle that can access the brain. She has been working on nanoparticles for her whole independent career, and in a previous project studying different forms of polymers, the researchers noticed that a small fraction of some of these nanoparticles reached the brain in preclinical studies. By honing those polymers further, Dhar's team developed a nanoparticle that can cross both the blood-brain barrier and the outer membrane of mitochondria.

"There have been a lot of ups and downs to figuring this out, and we're still working to understand the mechanism by which these particles cross the blood-brain barrier," Dhar said.

The team then tested the specialized drug-loaded nanoparticle in preclinical studies and found that they work to shrink both breast tumors and breast cancer cells that were seeded in the brain to form tumors there. The nanoparticle-drug combination also appeared to be nontoxic and significantly extended survival in lab studies.

Next, the team wants to test their method in the lab to replicate human brain metastases more closely, perhaps even using patient-derived cancer cells . They also want to test the drug in laboratory models of glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive brain cancer.

"I'm really interested in polymer chemistry, and using that toward medical purposes really fascinates me," said Akash Ashokan, a University of Miami doctoral student working in Dhar's lab and co-first author on the study along with doctoral student Shrita Sarkar. "It's great to see that applied toward cancer therapeutics."

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine

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Study: These 2 Body Types May Be Linked to an Increased Risk of Developing Colorectal Cancer

• New research suggests that individuals who are obese or are tall and carry fat in their midsection have a higher risk of developing colorectal cancer
• Researchers looked at multiple body types and found that height played a smaller role in cancer risk than previously thought
• Lifestyle choices like diet, exercise, and alcohol consumption can increase your risk of colorectal cancer

Your body type could determine your risk of developing colorectal cancer , according to new research. 

A recent study published in the journal Science Advances found that people who have obesity or are tall with fat accumulation around their midsection or waist are at an increased risk of developing colorectal cancer, regardless of their family’s history with the cancer.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide and the second leading cause of death from cancer, with roughly 150,000 new cases projected for 2024, according to the American Cancer Society.  Cases among people younger than 55 have been rising at an alarming rate, with diagnoses jumping from 11% in 1995 to 20% in 2019.

Other research has found that where and how your body stores fat can contribute to colorectal cancer risk . A 2022 study, for example, also found people who are obese or are tall and “centrally obese” have a higher risk of developing colorectal cancer, but the participants in that study were all of European ancestry.  

This new research is the first to find an association between higher odds of colorectal cancer and body type among people of varying ancestries: Caucasian, African, and Asian. 

Heinz Freisling, PhD , an epidemiologist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer and coauthor of the study, told Health that the results challenge the common practice of estimating cancer risk based on body mass index (BMI), a measurement often used to determine whether someone is overweight.

“Despite the usefulness of BMI at the population level, for example, to track obesity prevalence over time,” he said, “it cannot distinguish between different subtypes of unhealthy weight, for example, whether excess body weight is carried around the waist or rather at the hips.”

Antonio_Diaz / Getty Images

The Influence of Body Phenotype on Colorectal Cancer

For this study, researchers drew data from 329,828 people in the U.K. Biobank, a large biomedical database and research resource.

They used participants’ BMI, height, weight, waist-to-hip ratio , and waist and hip circumference to split them into four groups based on body phenotype or their observable characteristics.

The four groups were: generally obese; tall with more distributed fat mass; tall and centrally obese; and shorter with a smaller hip and waist but high weight and BMI.

Researchers found that the tall and centrally obese group had a 12% average increased risk of colorectal cancer, with the chances rising to 18% for women in that group. People in the generally obese group had a 10% higher risk of colorectal cancer.

The other groups had a small but not significant increase in their risk of colorectal cancer.

The spikes were seen across all ancestry groups, suggesting that a person’s background didn’t play a role.

“We consistently observed differences in risk for two types of body shape: more of a generally obese body shape and more of a tall and centrally obese body shape,” Freisling said. “For the time being we have mostly what we call observational evidence, whereby we compare risk for different body types in a population.”

How Genetics Factors Into Risk

The scientists also performed a genome-wide association study to help them identify genes associated with the various body shapes. They identified more than 3,400 genetic variants across the four body types. 

Genetic variants related to a generally obese body type showed increased gene expression in brain tissues, researchers discovered. Meanwhile, those associated with the tall and centrally obese body type had more gene expression in adipose, breast, nerve, blood vessel, and reproductive tissues.  

These differences “may reflect divergent mechanisms by which body shapes influence the risk of CRC,” the authors wrote.

Freisling said future studies could investigate the genes underlying the relationship between the four body shapes and gene expression.

What’s Behind the Height and Cancer Connection? 

The relationship between being taller and having a higher cancer risk is “remarkably robust,” according to a 2019 study. That study examined the relationship between height and cancer risk in 23 million Korean adults. Greater height was associated with increased risk for every cancer they studied except for esophageal cancer.

Another study found that the risk of eight cancers, including colorectal, increased with each additional four inches of height.

“It is believed that taller individuals might have longer colons, providing more surface area for tumor development,” Anam Khan, MD , assistant professor of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, told Health . “This can lead to more opportunities for abnormal cell growth and genetic mutations.”

She added that other factors like hormonal imbalances , diet, and lifestyle may also play a role. For instance, taller people may eat more, which could potentially increase their exposure to carcinogens or other factors associated with colon cancer risk.

Ways to Reduce Your Risk of Colorectal Cancer

While losing weight can help prevent fat accumulation, it’s not always possible to completely change your body type. Your shape is primarily the result of genes. 

The good news is that there are other ways to decrease your risk of developing colorectal cancer. 

Those include limiting alcohol intake, exercising regularly, not smoking, and managing stress by getting adequate sleep, Hina Saeed, MD, deputy director of radiation oncology with Lynn Cancer Institute at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, told Health . 

Nutrition also plays a major role, Khan said. Eating more whole grains and legumes while limiting your intake of processed meats and red meat, such as beef and pork, can help decrease your risk of colorectal cancer. 

It’s also essential to get a colorectal cancer screening if eligible—the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that people at average risk start screening at age 45. 

“It’s estimated that about 55% of colorectal cases and deaths could be attributed to modifiable risk factors,” Khan said. “So it is extremely important to learn about modifiable risk factors and take proactive steps to mitigate them.”

Peruchet-Noray L, Sedlmeier AM, Dimou N, et al. Tissue-specific genetic variation suggests distinct molecular pathways between body shape phenotypes and colorectal cancer .  Sci Adv . 2024;10(16):eadj1987. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adj1987

American Cancer Society. Key statistics for colorectal cancer .

Siegel RL, Wagle NS, Cercek A, Smith RA, Jemal A. Colorectal cancer statistics, 2023 . CA Cancer J Clin . 2023;73(3):233-254. doi:10.3322/caac.21772

Sedlmeier AM, Viallon V, Ferrari P, et al. Body shape phenotypes of multiple anthropometric traits and cancer risk: a multi-national cohort study . Br J Cancer . 2023;128(4):594-605. doi:10.1038/s41416-022-02071-3

Giovannucci E. A growing link-what is the role of height in cancer risk? .  Br J Cancer . 2019;120(6):575-576. doi:10.1038/s41416-018-0370-9

Green J, Cairns BJ, Casabonne D, et al. Height and cancer incidence in the Million Women Study: prospective cohort, and meta-analysis of prospective studies of height and total cancer risk . Lancet Oncol . 2011;12(8):785-794. doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(11)70154-1

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