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NIH Staff Cuts Slow Potentially Lifesaving Treatment

Testing for an experimental cell-based immune therapy that shows promise in treating gastrointestinal cancer has been delayed by layoffs among highly trained staff at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Steven A. Rosenberg, an immunotherapy researcher at the NIH, has worked to develop a treatment for gastrointestinal cancer using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), immune cells taken from inside the patient’s tumor that can fight cancer cells. Results of a study testing the method were published recently in Nature Medicine. But treatment for two patients on the therapy was delayed because of layoffs at the NIH, including scientists who prepared patients’ cells for treatment and specialists who purchased materials for research. “Everything I try to do, I try to do at warp speed. These are people with desperate illnesses and nowhere to go,” Rosenberg, an author of the study, said in an article in the Washington Post. “Right now, assuming things don’t get any worse, it would be a month [delay]. These are not patients that have very many months left.” Natalie Phelps, a patient with advanced colorectal cancer who came to the NIH last fall after surgery, radiation and chemotherapy failed to stem the spread of her cancer, is one of the patients waiting to receive the TIL therapy. “It’s one thing that seems unfair: Why would a metastatic cancer patient need more stress?” she told the Post. “Why slow down the research when cancer rates are on the rise, particularly with young people under 50?”

Celebrity Cancer Stories Often Lack Important Details

Stories about famous people diagnosed with cancer—whether athletes, actors, rock stars or the king of England—always garner clicks, but often the articles lack basic information about the type or stage of cancer. Oncologist David J. Benjamin of the Hoag Family Cancer Institute in Newport Beach, California, has had patients come into his office asking if a celebrity’s cancer experience has any bearing on their own. Often Benjamin is unable to say because news accounts don’t include much about the nature of the famous person’s cancer. In a study published in ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology, Benjamin and his co-authors examined more than 4,000 news stories with a cancer headline published from 2010 to 2020. They focused on 254 stories that discussed a public figure with cancer. They found that the cancer type was not mentioned in 14.5% of the stories. Cancer stage, a measure of how far cancer has spread in the body, was not reported in 63% of stories. The celebrity’s cancer prognosis was not discussed in 36.6% of stories. “When someone asks us, ‘What do you think about this public figure with cancer?’, we have access to the same information,” Benjamin said in an article in Healio. “When we have had those conversations with our patients, it left everybody with a bit of uncertainty, leading to more questions than answers.” Benjamin said linking patients to reliable sources like the American Cancer Society website is a good strategy for providing accurate information for them.

Saliva Test May Offer Early Clues About Prostate Cancer

A saliva test could provide an early indication of the risk men face for developing prostate cancer. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine used saliva samples to predict prostate cancer risk in men between 55 and 69 by looking for 130 DNA mutations linked to the disease. Men who scored in the top 10% for cancer risk were offered a biopsy and an MRI scan, standard diagnostic methods for discovering prostate cancer. Of 468 men who had a high score and underwent the tests, 187 were found to have prostate cancer. Intermediate- or high-risk tumors that needed treatment were found in 103 men. Excitement about study results led geneticist Ros Eeles of the Institute of Cancer Research in London to tell the BBC, “With this test, it could be possible to turn the tide on prostate cancer,” but other experts had a more cautious take. Researcher Dusko Ilic of King’s College London called the results promising but said the new test improved cancer detection “only modestly,” adding that there was no direct evidence that the new test improved survival or quality of life.