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The cancer death rate fell by 32% between 1991 and 2019, according to an American Cancer Society report released Wednesday. The latest figures show the overall risk of dying from cancer continues to drop at an accelerating rate. The falling mortality rate translates to about 3.5 million fewer cancer deaths over the 28-year period than had the rate stayed the same, the ACS notes in a press release. (Garfinkel, 1/13)

A new report says 3.5 million cancer deaths have been prevented in recent decades, thanks to declines in smoking, advances in treatments and improved early detection. But the cancer statistics paper published Wednesday, a companion to the American Cancer Society's 2022 annual report, cautions pandemic-related impacts to cancer detection and treatment aren't yet known. The scientific paper also calls out racial disparities in cancer rates that have long persisted. (Thornton, 1/12)

Oregon State University researchers suggest a preventative skin cancer vaccine could be possible. According to the university, a vaccine stimulating the production of a protein critical to the skin’s antioxidant network could help people bolster their defenses against skin cancer. Arup Indra, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at OSU, explained that the ultraviolet radiation from the sun leads to oxidative stress, which increases the risk of skin cancers such as melanoma. “A messenger RNA vaccine, like the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for COVID-19, that promoted production of the protein, TR1, in skin cells could mitigate the risk of UV-induced cancers and other skin problems,” Indra explained. (Urenda, 1/12)

Obesity increases the risk of developing more than a dozen types of cancer. A new study from the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway can now answer why this is. Cancer is caused by genetic changes that break down normal constraints on cell growth. It is known that obesity and overweight increases the risk of developing cancer, but the question until now has been why? Now, researchers at University of Bergen have demonstrated that lipids associated with obesity make cancer cells more aggressive and likely to form actual tumors. The researchers have discovered that the changed environment surrounding the cancerous cell, from a normal weight body to an overweight or obese body, pushes the cancer cell to adapt. This allows the malignant cells to form a tumor. (Henderson, 1/12)

There are two things Phil Greenberg, the head of immunology at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is especially well-known for: a characteristic wiry gray mop of hair and wide glasses, and a rock-solid reputation as one of the leading researchers in cancer immunotherapy. Greenberg was behind some of the key scientific advances that led to breakthrough CAR-T cell therapies, and co-founded Juno Therapeutics, a biotech that helped launch one of the first of those treatments. Now, he’s co-founding a new venture called Affini-T Therapeutics, a Seattle and Massachusetts-based company that hopes to eliminate cancers by targeting the source of cancer cells. (Chen, 1/13)

KHN: Long-Excluded Uterine Cancer Patients Are Step Closer To 9/11 Benefits

Tammy Kaminski can still recall the taste of benzene, a carcinogenic byproduct of burning jet fuel. For nine months after the 9/11 attacks, she volunteered for eight hours every Saturday at St. Paul’s Chapel, just around the corner from ground zero in New York City. She breathed in cancer-causing toxic substances, like fuel fumes and asbestos, from the smoke that lingered and the ash that blanketed the pop-up clinic where first responders could grab a meal, take a nap or get medical care. But in 2015, when Kaminski, a chiropractor who lives in West Caldwell, New Jersey, was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she didn’t get the same help that other volunteers did. Although Kaminski, 61, and her doctors believe the cancer is linked to her time volunteering after 9/11, the federal health insurance and monitoring program would not cover her treatments for endometrial cancer — or those of anyone exposed to toxic substances from the attacks who then developed that form of uterine cancer. (Hensley, 1/13)

Beatrice Mintz, 100, of Philadelphia, a pioneering, award-winning research scientist in developmental biology and genetics, gene-transfer technology, epigenetics, and tumor microenvironment, died Monday, Jan. 3, of heart failure at her home in Elkins Park. Even as she was entering her 62nd year in Philadelphia, Dr. Mintz never officially retired. She started working at the Institute for Cancer Research in 1960, stayed on when it became part of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in 1974, and went on to become one its most celebrated researchers. (Miles, 1/12)