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Cognitive Effects From Radiation Subside for Many Survivors

Cognitive impairment, such as difficulty with attention, concentration, memory, planning and problem solving, can be a common side effect of radiation to treat metastatic tumors in the brain. However, a review presented Sept. 29 at the American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., suggests many survivors recover their cognitive abilities. Researchers analyzed three studies that included a total of 288 people who had experienced neurocognitive failure after receiving brain radiation. All participants took cognitive tests before starting treatment and then again six and 12 months later. Researchers found 38% and 42% of people had achieved complete cognitive recovery at six and 12 months, respectively, MedPage Today reported. Researchers also found that 76% of participants demonstrated improvement on the tests after one year. “Our analysis reveals that a sizeable proportion of patients experience full neurocognitive function failure reversal,” Hua-Ren Ryan Cherng, the study’s lead author and a radiation oncology resident at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore, said during the meeting. Additionally, the study found people who received stereotactic radiosurgery, which concentrates radiation directly at the tumor, were more likely to achieve cognitive recovery than those who had whole brain radiation therapy. The study authors said the results can help educate people with cancer about the risk for cognitive side effects before they decide to begin radiation.

Breast Cancer Rates Continue to Rise, But Deaths Decrease

The rate of breast cancer diagnoses has continued to climb in the past decade, with young women and Asian American/Pacific Islander women seeing the steepest increases, according to an American Cancer Society report released Oct. 1. Researchers found breast cancer incidence rose by 1% each year from 2012 to 2021, with about 1 in 8 women expected to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer during their lifetime. For women under 50, incidence increased by 1.4% annually, and 1 in 50 women will be diagnosed before age 50, the New York Times reported. Breast cancer diagnoses rose by 2.6% per year among Asian American/Pacific Islander women. Despite rising incidence, breast cancer mortality dropped by approximately 10% during the same period. However, not all groups have experienced similar improvement in survival. Black women have a 38% higher death rate than white women, while the mortality rate for Native American women stayed flat in the past decade. “The bottom line is we need to improve access to high-quality screening and high-quality treatment for all women of color, especially to Black and Native American women,” Rebecca L. Siegel, the report’s senior author and an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, told the New York Times. “We need to expand that progress to all women.”

Pollution Exposure May Cause Aggressive Cancers in Black Americans

Black Americans are more likely to develop aggressive forms of cancer and have higher cancer mortality rates than white Americans. The reason, however, may not be due to their ancestry but to environmental factors, according to a study published Sept. 19 in Nature Communications. Researchers analyzed data for more than 23,000 people with cancer, 1,800 of whom identified as Black. They found Black people were 11% to 35% more likely to have gene duplications in their tumors than white people, STAT reported. Gene duplications can make cancer more aggressive, leading to worse outcomes. To determine the cause of these duplications, researchers looked at environmental factors, as previous studies have shown Black Americans are exposed to more cancer-causing pollutants than other racial and ethnic groups. Researchers exposed mice to common pollutants and saw an increased rate of gene duplications. “Exposures that [different racial groups] face could absolutely contribute to both different rates of cancer and, among the cancers that do occur, different molecular features of those cancers,” Rameen Beroukhim, a neuro-oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston who was not involved in the study, told STAT. Experts said the research may point to the need to reduce exposure to pollutants to prevent these aggressive forms of cancer. “If it truly is that exposure that’s driving the cancer, we need to then work with our communities to be more informed and then drive policies around that,” Melissa Davis, director of the Institute of Genomic Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta who was not involved in the study, told STAT.