American Association for Cancer Research, April 25-30
By Beth Gilbert HealthDay Reporter
The annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research was held this year from April 25 to 30 in Chicago, drawing approximately 20,000 participants from around the world, including scientists, cancer survivors, clinicians, allied health professionals, and industry professionals. The conference highlighted recent advances in the treatment, management, and prevention of cancer.
In one study, Adetunji Toriola, M.D., Ph.D., of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues identified significant declines in breast cancer mortality among women aged 20 to 49 years from 2010 to 2020.
The authors evaluated data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry, including data on 11,661 breast cancer deaths among women ages 20 to 49 years between 2010 and 2020.
The researchers found that breast cancer mortality declined among women aged 20 to 49 years, with marked declines occurring after 2016. However, non-Hispanic Black women continued to experience the highest mortality rates. Women aged 20 to 39 years had worse survival compared with those aged 40 to 49 years, with a 10-year survival of 78.5 versus 87.6 percent.
"Worse 10-year survival among women aged 20 to 39 years highlights the value of population-based screening for women aged 40 to 49 years and the need to ensure targeted screening in high-risk women less than 40," Toriola said.
In another study, Simo Du, M.D., of NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues found that women have a significantly higher risk for experiencing cancer-related fatigue (CRF) compared with their male counterparts.
The authors evaluated data from the 2015 to 2016 and 2017 to 2020 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and included 1,555 cancer survivors in the analysis.
The researchers found that women were approximately 1.5 times more likely to experience CRF compared with men. In addition, cancer survivors experiencing CRF and depression were twice as likely to reduce their participation in recreational activities, which was a key indicator of diminished quality of life. Moderate-intensity recreational physical activity was linked to an approximately 50 percent lower risk for CRF. Both moderate and vigorous recreational physical activity were associated with a twofold to fivefold reduction in depression risk among cancer survivors.
"Clinicians should increase awareness of CRF and recognize it as a significant and persistent issue affecting survivors' quality of life. Routine screening for CRF should be integrated across the continuum of care -- from diagnosis, through active treatment, and extending into long-term survivorship -- given that CRF can persist for years after treatment completion," Du said. "Intervention programs should prioritize individualized, moderate-intensity exercise regimens, which have demonstrated effectiveness in mitigating CRF symptoms. Clinicians should proactively refer patients experiencing CRF to appropriate supportive services, including physical therapy, certified exercise specialists, personal trainers with oncology expertise, or community-based cancer survivorship programs affiliated with health care institutions."
As part of the KEYNOTE 689 trial, Ravindra Uppaluri, M.D., of the Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues found that neoadjuvant pembrolizumab followed by surgery and adjuvant pembrolizumab concurrent with and after postoperative radiotherapy without or with chemotherapy represents a new standard of care in the treatment of patients with resectable locally advanced head and neck cancer.
The authors randomly assigned more than 700 patients to either standard of care (SOC) alone or pembrolizumab with SOC. The primary end point was event-free survival. Key secondary end points were major pathologic response and overall survival. Safety was also assessed.
Patients in the pembrolizumab plus SOC arm received less radiation overall, and fewer patients required chemotherapy. Event-free survival was superior in the pembrolizumab plus SOC arm versus the SOC alone arm, with a hazard ratio of 0.73 and a P value of 0.0041. Median event-free survival was 51.8 months in the pembrolizumab plus SOC arm versus 30.4 months in the SOC alone arm. Major pathologic response was higher in the pembrolizumab arm. Overall survival was not significant but further follow-up is ongoing. Adverse events were similar between the two arms and, as expected, there were more immune-related adverse events in the pembrolizumab plus SOC arm.
"Management of resectable locally advanced head and neck cancers has been the same for over 20 years, with surgery followed by radiation with or without chemotherapy. Treatment outcomes are suboptimal and patients also suffer from toxicities of treatment," Uppaluri said. "Results from this trial support this regimen as a new standard of care. The results have been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for consideration for approval."
The study was funded by Merck, the manufacturer of pembrolizumab.
AACR: Incidence-Based Mortality Dropping for Young Women With Breast Cancer
TUESDAY, April 29, 2025 -- Incidence-based mortality declined from 2010 to 2020 among women aged 20 to 49 years diagnosed with breast cancer, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 25 to 30 in Chicago.
AACR: Nonsurgical Treatment Feasible for Mismatch Repair-Deficient Tumors
TUESDAY, April 29, 2025 -- A neoadjuvant programmed cell death 1 blockade enables nonoperative management among patients with early-stage mismatch repair-deficient solid tumors, according to a study published online April 27 in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 25 to 30 in Chicago.
AACR: Pretrained Machine Learning Models Help Diagnose Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer
TUESDAY, April 29, 2025 -- Leveraging whole slide embedding from pretrained foundation models improves nonmelanoma skin cancer diagnosis, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 25 to 30 in Chicago.
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
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Posted May 2025
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