Deintensified treatment involving a lower radiation dose and immunotherapy in place of chemotherapy may not perform as well as a more rigorous chemoradiation treatment approach in patients with early-stage human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated oropharyngeal cancer, according to new findings presented by Yom et al at the 2024 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA03) and simultaneously published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) released Breast Cancer Statistics, 2024, the organization’s biennial update on breast cancer occurrence and trends in the United States. The new report finds breast cancer mortality rates overall have dropped by 44% since 1989, averting approximately 517,900 breast cancer deaths. However, not all women have benefited from this progress, notably American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) women, whose rates have remained unchanged over the past 3 decades. Also concerning is the continued upward trend in breast cancer incidence, rising by 1% annually during 2012–2021, with the steepest increase in women younger than 50 years (1.4% per year) and Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) women of any age (2.5%–2.7% per year). These findings were reported by Giaquinto et al in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 

Two types of contemporary radiation therapy—proton-beam therapy or intensity-modulated radiation therapy—may provide comparable rates of tumor control with no differences in patient-reported quality of life among patients with low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer, according to new findings presented by Efstathiou et al at the 2024 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA01) and simultaneously published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics.

Adding the immune checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, with or without the monoclonal antibody oleclumab, to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) significantly improved pathologic complete response rates in patients with high-risk hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer, according to data presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024.