Collection! The American Association for Cancer Research releases its 2020 Cancer Progress Report.

Cancer: A continuing global public health challenge Cancer is one of the world's leading causes of disease and death, with statistics for 2018 showing that it accounts for 16% of all deaths worldwide.
and as the population ages, the global cancer burden will continue to increase, with the AACR report noting that by 2040, the total number of patients worldwide will reach 27.5 million and 16.3 million will die as a result.
most cancers occur in older adults, the AACR report also points to the global burden of cancer in children.
estimates that by 2020, 413,000 children under the age of 14 will develop cancer and 328,000 will die as a result.
if levels of care do not improve, especially in low- and middle-income countries, 13.7 million children are expected to develop cancer and 11.1 million will lose their lives between 2020 and 2050.
and childhood cancer is particularly severe in low- and middle-income countries.
the burden of childhood cancer is particularly acute in low- and middle-income countries (Photo: Reference: Reference) Basic scientific research drives progress in the fight against cancer Basic scientific research has made a prominent contribution to understanding and treating human diseases, including cancer.
AARC report lists the impact of several basic scientific studies on cancer detection and treatment.
, for example: "The understanding of DNA structure paves the way for us to understand genetic mutations, which are the cause of most cancers."
understanding of normal cell DNA repair mechanisms has led to FDA-approved targeted treatments for breast, ovarian, pancreatic and prostate cancers.
decades of basic research in the field of immunology laid the foundation for the birth of oncology immunology therapy and revolutionized cancer treatment.
the basic biology of the NTRK gene and found that the fusion of the NTRK gene promoted the growth of a variety of cancers and eventually led to FDA-approved "unlimited cancer" therapies Larotrectinib and entrectinib.
The contribution of basic scientific research to cancer diagnosis and treatment (Photo Source: Reference 1) Understanding cancer risk factors allows us to better prevent cancer Researchers estimate that more than 40 percent of cancer cases and nearly half of cancer deaths in the United States in 2014 were associated with one or more avoidable risk factors.
understanding the risk factors for cancer will help us change our habits and reduce our risk of cancer.
risk factors listed in the AACR report include smoking, obesity, alcohol intake, UV radiation, poor eating habits, pathogen-specific infections, and in exercise.
are the leading potentially avoidable carcinogenic risk factors (Photo Source: Reference 1) where smoking is the leading preventable cause of cancer.
not only increases the risk of lung cancer, but also 17 other types of cancer, and no cigarette use levels are safe (including exposure to secondhand smoke).
, studies have shown that about 20 percent of new cancer cases in the United States are associated with obesity, in exercise, poor eating habits and excessive drinking.
15 cancer risks are directly linked to obesity.
exercise can reduce the risk of bladder cancer, breast cancer, stomach cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, endometrial cancer and other 9 types of cancer.
obesity and in exercise are associated with multiple cancer risks (Photo: Source: Supplied) The AACR report also highlights the importance of cancer screening.
cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer are all commonly used in a variety of screening methods, according to the report.
routine screening in accordance with the guidelines may not only reduce the incidence of cancer through early detection and treatment of precancer lesions, but may also reduce the risk of disease progression and death by detecting and detecting cancer in the early stages of the cancer.
introduction to cancer screening methods (Photo Source: Reference 1) Transforming scientific breakthroughs into life-saving therapies With the joint efforts of all members of the biomedical research ecosystem, advances in clinical cancer medicine have not only improved the quality of life of patients worldwide, but have also extended their lives.
from August 2019 to the end of July 2020, the FDA approved a total of 20 innovative anti-cancer therapies, and 15 approved anti-cancer therapies expanded the type of cancer treatment.
16 anti-cancer therapies approved by the FDA from August 2019 to July 2020 (Photo Source: Resources) 16 anti-cancer therapies are innovative targeted anti-cancer therapies, and 9 targeted therapies expand the types of cancer they treat.
of the most important advances in precision medicine is the approval of Rozlytrek, a targeted therapy for specific genetic biomarkers.
used to treat patients with solid tumors who are positive for NTRK gene fusion.
the approval of this innovative therapy thanks to a clinical trial design called the "basket trial".
the trial design allows patients of different cancer types carrying the same genetic biomarkers to be treated in the same clinical trial.
the design principles of the basket trial (Photo Source: Resources) The number of types of cancer that PARP inhibitors can treat has doubled in the past year.
development of PARP inhibitors is based on decades of scientific research on cellULAR DNA repair mechanisms.
researchers found that in cancers where the esophageal recombination repair mechanism is defective, the use of PARP inhibitors to further inhibit the base excision repair mechanism can lead to cancer cell death due to the accumulation of excessive DNA damage.
map of the mechanism of effects of PARP inhibitors (Photo Source: Resources) Over the past year, PARP inhibitors have been approved by the FDA to treat patients with specific pancreatic and prostate cancers, further expanding the use of these innovative therapies.
in the treatment of blood cancer, a number of targeted therapies have been approved by the FDA, including the BTK inhibitor Zebutini, developed by Baiji Shenzhou.
it with a treatment for cytoblastoma approved last November.
recent advances in the treatment of blood cancers (Photo Source: Supplied) Research into the treatment of cancer by regulating the mechanisms of osogenetics has also made a breakthrough in the past year.
tazemetostat, which targets EZH2, was approved by the FDA in January to treat sarcoma.
is the first esophageal genetics cancer treatment approved by the FDA.
in June, it was again approved by the FDA to treat patients with fage lymphoma with mutations in the EZH2 gene.
milestones in the development of Tazverik (Photo Source: Supplied) Immunotherapy has been called the fifth pillar therapy for cancer in addition to surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy.
as of July 31, 2020, at least one immunotherapy can be used to treat 16 types of cancer, including lung, liver, stomach, breast, etc.
, this year the FDA approved Keytruda for the treatment of patients with high tumor mutation load (TMB) solid tumors.
this is the first time TMB has been used as a biomarker to guide immunotherapy patient selection.
tumor mutation load helps to accurately screen patients who respond to immune checkpoints (Photo source: Resources1) Looking ahead The report notes that scientific and technological innovations in the following areas are expected to revolutionise patient care.
include: Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence has shown great potential in the field of cancer imaging, and through machine learning of thousands of cancer images, AI systems have the ability to analyze clinical, radiological and pathological photographs.
they can help improve the efficiency and accuracy of oncology imaging analysis.
addition to this, AI also has potential in the development of new drugs and patient care.
can be minimized by liquid biopsies: tissue biopsies can help doctors diagnose cancer and track how cancer responds to treatments, but it is usually an invasive process.
recent studies have found that the use of liquid biopsies to detect biomarkers in a patient's blood or cerebrospinal fluid can provide important biomarker information related to a patient's cancer.
, liquid biopsies provide a near-invasive way to track patients' cancer responses to therapy and detect disease progression in more real time.
liquid biopsies can be used to screen cancer patients early, help guide therapy options, and predict the development of cancer resistance and cancer recurrence.
Photo Source: A New Wave of Innovative Cancer Immunotherapy Cancer Immunotherapy is arguably one of the most exciting areas of cancer research, and immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment over the past decade.
, however, only some cancer patients respond to immunotherapy, and even those who receive remission may develop resistance over time.
, researchers are making continuous efforts to screen patients who are best suited for immunotherapy and to expand the scope of immunotherapy.
the latest immunoPET scanning technology may help doctors identify the patients best suited to immunotherapy when it it is time to select the patients who are best suited for immunotherapy.
this PET scanning technique, which binds nanoantibodies to the surface antigens of T cells and injects radioactive markers into the body, allows it to determine whether T-cells have gathered in the tumor microenviron environment.
this technique has been successful in animal experiments.
, the FDA has approved three biomarkers that guide immunotherapy selection: PD-L1 expression levels in tissues, mismatch repair defects/microsatellite instability (MMR/MSI), and tumor mutation load (TMB).
these biomarkers have had only moderate success in predicting patient responses.
the expression of tumor PD-L1 may limit the predictive power of current detection methods.
note that recent studies have shown that PD-L1 and PD-1 expression levels in tumors in patients with non-small cell lung cancer can be detected using PET scans by combining them with radioactively labeled molecules.
this non-invasive detection method may help solve tumor heterogeneity and, in combination with other clinical information, provide a more accurate patient screening strategy.
In expanding the scope of immunotherapy, researchers are developing a variety of combination therapies based on immuno-checkpoint inhibitors, as well as the discovery of new immuno-checkpoint proteins as targets, and the development of a new generation of immuno-checkpoint inhibitors.
next-generation immune checkpoint targets include PPRIG, TIGIT, OX40, and more.
report concludes that we are in an exciting but uncertain time for cancer research.
, innovation is bringing new ways to prevent, detect, diagnose and treat cancer to patients and their loved ones.
in 2020, the health and economic crisis brought about by COVID-19 will have a significant impact on cancer research.
the COVID-19 pandemic has cost more than $10 billion in research, according to estimates by DR Francis Collins, director of the NIH.
this challenging time, we need more science-based, patient-centered support and input.
AACR's cancer report is 172 pages long, and this article is limited to length and cannot be detailed.
"Read the full text/more" at the end of the article, you can visit the Cancer Report website, browse the report for more content and download the full report.
: This article is intended to introduce medical and health research, not treatment options recommended.
if you need guidance on treatment options, visit a regular hospital.
Resources: s1. . . . . . . . . Cancerprogressreport.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Philadelphia: American Association for Cancer Research; © 2020. Retrieved September 23, 2020, available from.