HOW CANCER RESEARCH ADVANCES, FROM BETTER SCREENING TO IMPROVED VACCINES, ARE SAVING LIVES

On World Cancer Day, we look at advances in cancer research, prevention and treatment that bring new hope and are extending or saving lives

I lost my best friend at the end of 2023 to an aggressive brain cancer, glioblastoma. Little more than three months after her diagnosis, she was gone.

There were many things I loved about Caroline, who I had known all my life. One of my favourites was her habit of asking, "What's your happy gossip, then?" It meant "tell me the good news".

And there is some, with World Cancer Day falling on February 4: we have entered what the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Cancer Research UK is calling the "golden age of cancer research".

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Non-invasive tests and screening aid in early diagnosis

A large study published at the end of 2024 estimates that almost six million deaths from the five most common cancers - breast, cervical, colorectal, lung and prostate cancer - were prevented between 1975 and 2020, largely because of better screening.

The study's co-lead author Katrina Goddard says eight out of 10 deaths from these cancers that were averted over the past 45 years were thanks to advances in prevention and screening.

Quitting smoking was by far the biggest lifesaver - that prevented an estimated 3.45 million deaths. Advances in mammography saved a significant number of lives, as did human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines in the case of cervical cancer and removal of precancerous polyps in the case of colorectal cancers.

Early diagnosis of cancer is key, says Dr Ashley Cheng Chi-kin, clinical director of oncology at the CUHK Medical Centre in Hong Kong. People are now more conscious of their cancer risk, he adds.

"NGOs, leading experts and professors are advocating low-dose CT (a special kind of X-ray that takes multiple pictures) for screening in people with risk factors. From our clinical experience, more cases are seen earlier. Previously, more than 60 per cent were advanced cases."

New tests for cancers are being developed all the time. Last year, US biotech firm Novelna began work on a test which, by analysing proteins in a person's blood, may be able to identify 18 different types of cancer.

In a screening of 440 people who had already been diagnosed with cancer, this test accurately identified 93 per cent of stage one cancers in men and 84 per cent in women. Stage one means the cancer has not spread and the prognosis is good.

The advantages of being able to test for cancer in blood are huge - it is cost-effective, accurate and non-invasive. Think of it as a liquid biopsy.

While Novelna's is still in development, researchers say it could pave the way for the next generation of screening tests for the earliest diagnosis of cancer.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year approved the use of Geneoscopy's non-invasive ColoSense, which tests stool specimens for colorectal cancer.

The FDA also granted approval for Guardant Health's Shield test, a blood test to screen for colorectal cancer in people who are at average risk for the disease and over 45 years old.

The American Cancer Society says the lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer is around one in 23 for men and one in 25 for women. More people under 50 are getting this cancer, so early testing is key.

AI's role in cancer treatment

Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to play a significant role in the future of the development of treatments and the diagnosis of cancer.

Consider: in a Swedish study in 2023, reading mammograms with the help of AI software found 20 per cent more cancers than the routine double reading by two different radiologists, and did not increase false positives.

There are now more than 20 FDA-approved AI-based applications for breast imaging, with many more in development. Research published in the journal Diagnostics suggests many of the most exciting projects and available AI applications focus on cancer detection for mammography.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health in the US developed an AI tool that uses the results of routine tests such as blood tests to work out how a person's cancer might respond to immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy works by prompting the body's immune system to target cancer cells, and is being used in many ways, Cheung says. This can include treating metastatic cancer - the form that has spread - and shrinking tumours before surgery. A personalised analysis can help determine whether to proceed.

Good news on vaccines

Protecting yourself from some viral infections may also help protect against cancer.

The hepatitis B virus, for example, can raise the risk of liver cancer. People at high risk include those with several sex partners, drug users and healthcare workers who come into regular contact with infected blood or body fluids.

According to the World Health Organization, vaccines protect against hepatitis B in more than 95 per cent of healthy infants, children and young adults.

The human papillomavirus, HPV, is a sexually transmitted virus that can cause six types of cancer - not just cervical cancer, but also anal, oropharyngeal, penile, vaginal and vulvar cancers. There has been a vaccine to protect against HPV since 2006.

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Washington, if you are vaccinated before being exposed to the virus, the HPV vaccine is 97 per cent effective in preventing cervical cancer and cell changes that could lead to cancer.

In the same way that traditional vaccines use a part of a virus to teach our bodies to identify and fight a disease, cancer vaccines use harmless proteins from cancer cells, called neoantigens, to do the same thing.

Currently, there are three cancer vaccines under trial at Oxford University in the UK.

OvarianVax teaches the immune system to recognise and fight cells that may develop into full-blown ovarian cancer at the earliest stages. It could help make women who carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene variants that are linked to a higher risk - 65 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively - of ovarian cancer less susceptible to it.

Ovarian cancer is often called a silent killer - not making its presence felt until the later stages, by which time it is harder to treat. A preventive vaccine could transform the outcome in the same way that the HPV vaccine is protecting women from cervical cancer.

LungVax, a type of immunotherapy made by BioNTech, the German biotechnology company that made the Covid-19 vaccine, is designed for smokers or ex-smokers, who have a higher risk for lung cancer. According to the team leading the vaccine's clinical trials, less than 10 per cent of people with lung cancer survive for 10 years.

The vaccine primes the immune system to recognise and fight cancer cells while leaving healthy cells untouched. It is no replacement for quitting smoking, however.

LynchVax is designed for people with Lynch syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that increases the risk of bowel, womb and other cancers. It affects 175,000 people in the UK, and 75 out of every 100 people with it will develop some kind of cancer during their lifetime, some getting more than one kind of cancer.

The vaccine may be able to increase the elimination of mutated cells, helping to reduce the risk of cancer transformation.

Hope for glioblastoma sufferers

There are new and hopeful developments in the treatment of glioblastoma, which is what my friend Caroline had and which is the most common and fatal type of brain cancer.

These include organoids, lab-grown models of brain tumours from human stem cells. They enable researchers to investigate how they form and how they resist treatment.

This means they offer potential to study the effectiveness of drugs and immunotherapies to identify which are best for a patient's tumour and speed treatment delivery.

Scientists also developed a "molecular GPS" - like a postcode in the brain - to guide immune cells to brain tumours.

An early phase clinical trial showed that a cancer-killing virus in development was safe and effective in treating glioblastoma.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, in the US state of Minnesota, also published encouraging news on the use of proton beam therapy to treat older patients with grade four, malignant glioblastoma. It is hoped this might extend the lives of patients and extend those lives with quality.

One study participant was given only six months to live following his glioblastoma diagnosis. He lived for almost three more years.

Like what you read? Follow SCMP Lifestyle on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also sign up for our eNewsletter here.

More Articles from SCMP

Barbie Hsu dies at 48, US-China rivalry: SCMP daily catch-up

Woman arrested in Thailand over record US$186 million romance scam

World’s top AI brains debate if DeepSeek’s model is a game changer

Is China’s DeepSeek moment a chance to transform into an ‘open-source nation’?

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

2025-02-03T20:36:23Z