Numerous studies conducted by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report progress for cancers including head and neck cancer, metastatic breast cancer and lung cancer. The results of these studies, along with dozens of others led by Dana-Farber faculty, will be presented at this year’s American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting held April 25-30, 2025, in Chicago.

Cigarette smoking continues to decline across the United States, largely driven by young adults.

Differentiated thyroid cancer patients who receive radioiodine (RAI) treatment after surgery have increased relative survival rates compared to those who do not receive the treatment. According to new research published in the April issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the clear trend for a higher long-term survival rate is observed in subgroups of patients with low- and intermediate-risk disease, while there is special benefit in high-risk disease. These findings confirm the benefit of RAI therapy for thyroid cancer patients and provide useful information for physicians to consider when determining optimal treatment.  

In a new study published in Science Bulletin, researchers from West China Hospital of Sichuan University present the largest human T cell reference for 68 subtypes and states, alongside STCAT, an automated annotation tool achieving 28% higher accuracy than existing methods. Their systematic analyses reveal T cell subtype dynamics in cancer and COVID-19, offering a valuable resource for the community. They also develop a TCellAtlas database for browse T cell expression profiles and analyzing customized scRNA-seq data by STCAT tool.

Researchers from the Endocrine Tumours group at the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), in collaboration with five university hospitals, have conducted the first comprehensive study of DNA methylation patterns in metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Published in the journal Thyroid, the study identifies an epigenetic signature comprising 156 CpG sites in primary tumours that could help stratify patients according to their risk of developing distant metastases.

In recent years, cell therapies have developed alongside chemotherapy and immunotherapy to become a new pillar in the treatment of patients with blood and lymph gland cancer. In solid tumors, such as skin, lung, or bone and soft tissue cancer (sarcomas), they have not yet proven themselves as a treatment method. Tumor shrinkage was achieved only in rare cases, but the side effects were all the more severe. An international research group led by scientists from the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT/UCC) in Dresden has now succeeded for the first time in a phase 1 clinical trial in testing a novel cell therapy approach that also shows promise for solid tumors. The results were now published in the renowned journal Nature Medicine.