In the last 10 years, the overall cancer death rate has continued to decline. Researchers in the US and across the world have made major advances in learning more complex details about how to prevent, diagnose, treat, and survive cancer. At the forefront of emerging cancer research is the success of immunotherapy, the growing role of precision medicine, the influence that reducing health disparities can have on cancer outcomes, and the development and use of liquid biopsies and machine learning, which is allowing scientists to make sense of “big data.” Here’s a look at some of the significant advances from the past 10 years that are helping to save lives now – and how ACS research has contributed to each one. 

Precision medicine is helping move cancer treatment from one-size-fits-all to an approach where doctors can choose treatments that are most likely to successfully treat a person’s cancer based on the detailed genetic information of that person’s specific cancer. With advances leading to faster and less expensive gene sequencing, precision medicine is starting to be used more often to treat patients, most notably in the treatment of lung cancer. Over the last 10 years, many researchers with ACS grants have contributed to that growth. For instance, ACS-funded researchers across the US have developed ways to quickly analyze the large amounts of data that result from gene sequencing, identify mutations in lung cancer genes, and helped find new treatments for lung cancer patients when the precision drug they were using stopped working. ACS also helped fund research on precision medicines for triple negative breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, certain brain cancers, and other types of cancer.

CAR T-cell therapy (also called gene therapy) involves making changes to a patient’s T cells (a type of immune cell) in the lab so they can better fight cancer. The ACS helped fund some of the pioneering research involved in the development and improvement of Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), the first gene therapy approved by the FDA. This drug can be used to treat leukemia and lymphoma in children and adults.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are another type of immunotherapy. They stop cancer cells from “hiding” from the immune system. But over time, patients develop resistance to these drugs, and ACS grantees are finding solutions.

Though fewer people use tobacco worldwide, smoking remains the leading cause of preventable deaths from cancer. In the past decade, ACS researchers have continued pioneering studies on the complexities of tobacco economics, showing that higher taxes on cigarettes reduce smoking and that increasing such taxes in states where they are still low could save lives. ACS researchers also found that illicit trade and harm to tobacco farmers are mostly myths sustained by the tobacco industry to stop public health efforts. The Surgeon General used ACS data to help show the far-reaching damage from smoking includes associations with breast and prostate cancer, as well as kidney failure, hypertension, infections, and respiratory diseases. In 2013, ACS research showed that women’s risk of dying from smoking had caught up to men’s.

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