Articles related to IMAGING/SCREENING

The Cancer Moonshot aims to enhance the lives of individuals and families dealing with and surviving cancer, lower the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the following 25 years, and ultimately put an end to cancer as we currently know it. In order to mobilize the federal government, the President established the first-ever Cancer Cabinet last year. He urged people, healthcare professionals, and leaders from various sectors to step up and take action in five key priority areas: (1) close the screening gap; (2) comprehend and address environmental exposure; (3) lessen the impact of preventable cancers; (4) bring cutting-edge research through the pipeline to patients and communities; and (5) support patients and their care. Here is the list of 13 more initiatives to go along with the already-introduced 25 programs, policies, and resources to address these five priority areas.

A group of UK researchers has created a novel prostate cancer (PaC) screening test (EpiSwitch) that, when combined with the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, has a high degree of accuracy for detecting the cancer. The test is based on measurement of five chromosome conformations that were first discovered in association with advanced PaC. The EpiSwitch test has a high positive predictive value for the diagnosis of PaC (92%) and a high negative predictive value (94%) when used in conjunction with the PSA level as a continuous variable, according to the researchers. The study’s authors advocated for additional research to investigate the test’s efficacy in larger patient samples, even though it was based on a scant number of patient samples.

In a study of 37,887 men 50 to 60 years old, those with PSA of >= 3 ng/ml underwent MRI imaging of the prostate and were randomized to systematic biopsy plus targeted biopsy or MRI-targeted biopsy only. MRI-directed targeted biopsy reduced the risk of overdiagnosis by half but did delay detection of intermediate-risk tumors in a small proportion of patients.

In this cohort analysis, which included male patients examined at 128 US Veterans Health Administration facilities between 2005 (n = 4,678,412) and 2019 (n = 5,371,701), facilities with greater rates of prostate-specific antigen screening showed lower rates of eventual metastatic prostate cancer incidence.

In this randomized trial from Poland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, the study population of approximately 85,000 individuals were randomly assigned to colonoscopy screening or usual care. The risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was 18% lower in the screening cohort.

A Narrative Review Liquid biopsy is increasingly being used clinically in advanced lung cancer, according to this review, and ongoing research is identifying applications of circulating tumor DNA-based testing that complement tissue analysis across a wide range of clinical settings. At many stages of the patient’s oncologic journey, circulating tumor DNA technologies are demonstrating potential benefits for patients, health care practitioners, health care systems, and researchers.