Many patients with early-stage breast cancer do not consistently maintain the long-term hormone therapy prescribed after lumpectomy, a large U.S. insurance claims analysis indicates. Findings provide important real-world context for treatment approaches that consider omitting radiation therapy, which typically rely on the expectation that patients will continue taking medication for at least five years.

A recent analysis of the NRG-RTOG 0534 “SPPORT” clinical trial evaluated the Luminal B (LumB) molecular subtype using the PAM50 genomic classifier to determine whether tumor biology could help identify patients most likely to benefit from hormone therapy. The analysis found that adding short-term androgen deprivation therapy (STADT), with or without pelvic lymph-node radiation therapy, provided a greater benefit in freedom from progression and metastasis-free survival among men with LumB tumors compared with those whose tumors were not classified as LumB. LumB prostate cancers are generally associated with more aggressive disease and increased androgen receptor signaling, leading researchers to hypothesize that these tumors may be particularly responsive to hormone therapy. The SPPORT trial compared radiation to the prostate bed alone with radiation plus STADT and radiation plus STADT and pelvic lymph-node radiation in men who required salvage radiation therapy following a detectable or rising PSA after prostatectomy. These results were presented during the Clinical Trials Session of the 2026 American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.

Men with high-risk prostate cancer have a higher likelihood of having residual disease following prostatectomy and may require radiation therapy after surgery, particularly when PSA levels begin to rise. Conventional postprostatectomy radiotherapy (COPORT) is typically delivered over 37 fractions, while hypofractionated postprostatectomy radiotherapy (HYPORT) delivers a slightly lower total radiation dose over just 25 fractions. Five-year results from the NRG-GU003 study showed that HYPORT and COPORT provided similar patient-reported urinary and bowel outcomes, overall quality of life, and biochemical control. However, HYPORT was associated with a statistically significant increase in physician-reported grade 3 urinary adverse events, particularly cystitis and hematuria. These results were presented during the Clinical Trials Session of the 2026 American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.

Low-dose radiation therapy may do more than relieve pain from early knee osteoarthritis, with a long-term analysis suggesting it could also influence how the disease progresses. The findings come from a new integrated analysis of a randomized trial conducted in Russia that followed nearly 300 patients for almost 12 years.

A short course of ultra-low-dose radiation therapy relieved painful bone lesions from multiple myeloma for most patients in a multi-institutional phase 2 clinical trial. The findings suggest that a lower-intensity approach could help ease patients’ pain without interrupting other treatment and with almost no side effects.

A research team has found that physicians in Türkiye are highly willing to request BRCA1/2 genetic testing for eligible patients, but the broader cascade-testing process often fails to reach relatives who may carry the same cancer-predisposing variants.