Cancer Today’s Winter 2024-25 Issue: Reducing the Burden of Radiation, Why Geriatric Assessment is Critical to Care, and More

After Tiffany Fagnani was diagnosed with stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer that had spread to her brain in July 2017, she began targeted therapy and underwent surgery to remove the brain tumor. To kill any cancerous cells that remained, Fagnani also received radiation. In past years, she would have received whole brain radiation treatment, which applies radiation to the entire brain over a period of several weeks. Instead, she received stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), which aims the radiation directly at the tumor, across just three sessions. “I went on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and that was it,” Fagnani says. 

The precision of SBRT has revolutionized radiation treatment, allowing people with cancer to experience fewer side effects, face reduced costs, and spend less time at medical appointments. However, not all providers offer this shorter, more intense form of radiation. The latest issue of Cancer Today, a magazine and online resource for cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers published by the American Association for Cancer Research, explores the benefits of SBRT and the inequitable access to this approach—often along socioeconomic lines. 

Cancer Today’s winter issue also details the challenges in delivering the right level of care for older adults, who often have unique needs. People 65 and older make up about 58% of cancer patients in the United States, yet most clinical trial data include information from younger people. As a result, oncologists often rely on their own expertise when devising treatment plans for older adults. “We keep studying this, and the truth is we’re just not good at it,” William Dale, MD, PhD, a geriatrician and palliative medicine physician at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, California, tells Cancer Today. Geriatric assessments can help take the guessing out of treatment decisions by providing a formal way to consider physical performance, co-existing medical conditions, additional medications, cognition, and other factors.  

The issue also delves into biomarker testing’s growing role in helping oncologists fine-tune their selection of treatments that can benefit specific people with solid cancers based on their tumor characteristics. Testing also can steer oncologists away from treatment options that are less likely to help patients. 

To call attention to patient advocacy efforts, Cancer Today also highlights Margie Wilson, who teaches women not to ignore the signs of endometrial cancer. Wilson’s efforts specifically focus on Black women, who are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced endometrial cancer and less likely to live five years after diagnosis than white women with the disease. 

The new issue helps translate recent studies for patients, including research showing that lowering the dose of many approved oncology drugs would not impact efficacy. The magazine also offers lifestyle advice, including suggestions for preventing lymphedema and how plant-based diets may help people with prostate cancer reduce their risk for disease progression. Plus, William G. Nelson, MD, PhD, director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore and Cancer Today’s editor-in-chief, writes about a new drug that targets certain brain tumors by crossing the blood-brain barrier. 

To view content from the winter issue, visit Cancer Today’s website or read the digital edition.  

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