World Cancer Day: what are the recent breakthroughs in diagnosis, treatment and finding a cure for cancer?

Cancer is one of the world’s biggest killers, with nearly 10 million people dying from the disease in 2020. It is thought that one in two people will develop some form of cancer in their lifetime, with 500,000 cases expected to be diagnosed in the UK every year by 2040.

However, scientists are continuing to use a range of technologies to fight the disease and create better outcomes for patients. In recent months, they have identified new diagnosis tools - and researched a range of more effective treatments.

So, to mark World Cancer Day - an international day to raise awareness of cancer and encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment - NationalWorld has taken a look at some of the recent breakthroughs, each of which are taking us one step closer towards eliminating cancer.

1. Breast cancer treatment ‘transformed’ 

In January, scientists at Manchester University discovered that a rare variant of a protein found in human cells may hold the key to transforming breast cancer treatment. They believe that a variant called RAC1B may play a key role in making cancer cells resistant to treatment, so by targeting this variant in particular, treatment effectiveness could be “dramatically boosted”.

The experts also found that not having this protein does not cause any harmful effects to organs - and can even prevent tumours from being formed. Scientists said that this new form of treatment could be particularly useful for people whose cancer may have returned after an initial remission.

Dr Simon Vincent, director of research, support and influencing at Breast Cancer Now, commented: “It’s exciting that a variant of a previously overlooked common protein could hold the key to transforming the way we treat breast cancer. Early-stage discoveries like this can help provide the building blocks for the breakthroughs of the future, leading to new and effective treatments for the 55,000 women and 370 men who are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK every year.”

2. Better diagnosis tools for pancreatic cancer

Oncologists have developed a new test for the early detection of pancreatic cancer, which is known to be one of the deadliest cancers - with a survival rate of less than 5% over five years. Typically, it is rarely diagnosed before it has started to spread, but with a new, fast and non-invasive check, which analyses microorganisms such as bacteria in a patient’s stool sample, huge progress could be made in preventing people dying from this type of cancer.

According to scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, the test was able to identify 95% of early pancreatic cancers.

3. Engineering immune cells to hunt down cancer

CAR-T-cell therapy is an experimental new treatment that makes immune cells hunt down and kill cancerous cells by removing and genetically altering T cells from cancer patients. The altered cells then produce proteins called chimeric antigen receptors, which recognise which cells are cancerous and destroy them.

The therapy has recently been declared a success in leukaemia patients, with scientists at the University of Pennsylvania announcing that two of the first people treated with CAR-T-cell therapy remain in remission 12 years on. In December 2022, news broke of a teenager, who had been diagnosed with “incurable” leukaemia, being cured using these sorts of cell engineering techniques.

4. New radiotherapy technologies 

A new radiation therapy called FLASH has been found to be a safe, effective, quicker and less painful way to kill cancer malignancies through the use of radiation. It delivers over 300 times the dosage of traditional radiation therapy in just a fraction of a second, and six out of twelve bone cancer patients trialled on it said that it relieved pain. John Breneman, the principal investigator for the study, said the innovation could result in higher cure rates.

Meanwhile, another radiation breakthrough that was made was the creation of a blood test that can identify which patients will benefit the most from radiotherapy, before treatment begins. To further this, scientists are even working on a new drug which could be used to make radiotherapy work for patients whose cancer is currently resistant to it.

5. Tackling immunotherapy resistance

Last but certainly not least, doctors have found a new treatment that could stop cancer advancing in patients whose tumours have become resistant to immunotherapy.

Using a two-pronged treatment - immunotherapy combined with an experimental drug called guadecitabine - a cancer’s resistance to immunotherapy can be reversed. This means that patients who are initially expected to die after exhausting other treatment options can survive for much longer.

In a trial at the Royal Marsden and University College London hospital, which inluded patients with lung, breast, prostate and bowel cancer, oncologists found that the treatment halted the advance of cancer in more than one third of patients. It is hoped that in the long term, the new combination will become an effective weapon against several different forms of cancer.