A project at Lund University in Sweden has trained an AI model to identify breast cancer patients who could be spared from axillary surgery. The model analyses previously unutilised information in mammograms and pinpoints with high accuracy the individual risk of metastasis in the armpit. A newly completed study shows that the model indicates that just over 40 per cent of today’s axillary surgery procedures could be avoided.

The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex and dynamic ecosystem that plays a pivotal role in cancer progression and therapy resistance. Its heterogeneity and constant remodeling present significant challenges for effective treatment. The emergence of nanomedicine integrates nanotechnology and medicine, aiming to overcome and ameliorate the limitations of conventional therapeutic agents in cancer treatment. Despite the broad biomedical applications of nanomaterials, the clinical translation of nanodrugs remains hindered by the complexity and heterogeneity of the TME as well as challenges related to the physicochemical properties of nanomaterials. This paper published in iMetaMed underscores key challenges and difficulties currently faced by nanomaterials in cancer treatment, including: issues related to nanomaterial biosafety and long-term toxicity assessment; uncertainties in vivo biotransformation and metabolic pathways; therapeutic efficacy variations caused by spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the TME; barriers from laboratory research to clinical translation; and insufficient selectivity in the precise modulation of TME components.

The University of Texas at Arlington has received a $1.84 million federal grant to study how the body’s natural defense system can sometimes go wrong—and how that knowledge could lead to better treatments for disease.

The new paper shows that two protein “transcription factors” called Tcf1 and Lef1 are critical modulators that direct bone marrow stem cells to the T cell path in the thymus - and could have implications in cancer immunotherapy and vaccine developments for years to come.

A new study in eGastroenterology shows that blood microbial cell-free DNA (cfDNA) can differentiate hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) from metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) in the liver. Using shotgun metagenomics on plasma and tissue samples, researchers identified distinct bacterial taxa associated with each cancer type. Plasma microbial signatures proved stronger than tissue-based signals, highlighting their diagnostic potential.

This study presents the first systematic safety evaluation of Gardasil 9 and Gardasil in male recipients, addressing a key evidence gap. Gardasil 9 showed a potentially more favourable safety profile than Gardasil. These findings may strengthen confidence among the public and providers, inform clinical and policy decisions, and support global immunization efforts. Identified positive AEFIs warrant prospective validation to determine their clinical significance.

In pancreatic cancer, knowing if there is metastasis is key to deciding whether to operate or not. Nowadays, a significant number of patients undergo unnecessary invasive surgeries because their metastasis was not detected in time.

"Our algorithm accurately predicts metastasis using images that are already routinely obtained," says Malats.

The article is published in the journal 'GUT'.

The algorithm will be tested in hospitals thanks to a project that has received nearly 800,000 euros in funding from the Spanish Department for Digital Transformation.