The endorsement came on January 9, 2025, when actor Mel Gibson appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience and described three friends with stage IV cancer who he said recovered after taking ivermectin and fenbendazole. Clips of the segment were viewed tens of millions of times across social media in the weeks that followed.

Although ivermectin and benzimidazole drugs like fenbendazole have shown anti-cancer activity in laboratory cells and animal studies, no clinical trials have shown they are safe or effective for treating cancer in people. Ivermectin is FDA-approved for parasitic infections in humans; fenbendazole is approved only for veterinary use.

The increases were largest among men, White patients, residents in the US south, and people with cancer.

The findings, to be published May 12 in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network Open, raise concerns that celebrity endorsements like this could influence people to turn to unproven treatments, at the risk of delaying or forgoing conventional treatments that have been confirmed to work.

“As a primary care doctor, I want my patients and people across the country to have the chance to get treatments we know can help them live longer, healthier lives,” said senior author Dr. John N. Mafi, an associate professor-in-residence of medicine, division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “When prescribing for an unproven cancer treatment more than doubles after a single podcast, especially among men and people in the South, it raises a concern that patients may be skipping or delaying treatments we know work in favor of something that hasn’t been proven to help them.”

The researchers compared prescription patterns for the combination ivermectin-benzimidazole among people with and without cancer from January 1 through July 31, 2025 following the endorsement to prescription patterns for the medication combination from the corresponding year-ago period. They used de-identified electronic health records from more than 68 million patients from the multicenter US TriNetX research network capturing prescriptions given to 18- to 90-year-old patients in ambulatory care and emergency departments.

They found that overall prescribing rates within the entire cohort doubled during the months following the endorsement compared with the similar year-ago period. Among people with cancer, prescribing rates were more than 2.5 times higher during the more recent period. In the US South, those rates were more than three times higher during the six months in 2025 compared with the same period the previous year.

“We often focus on how to efficiently get evidence into practice,” said Dr. Michelle Rockwell, an assistant professor of family and community medicine at Virginia Tech and the study’s lead author. ”But these findings remind us that some forces can influence care very quickly. The challenge for health systems is how to meet patients in that moment with information that is both timely and trustworthy.”

The study has some limitations. The study’s observational design cannot establish cause and effect. Given that it was a convenience sample, it may not be representative of the entire US. Also, it focused on physician orders rather than actual use of the drug.

The findings raise several questions that warrant further study: whether patients are substituting ivermectin-benzimidazole for proven cancer treatments, whether its use leads to adverse outcomes, which physicians are prescribing it and in what settings, and what strategies can counter misinformation at the point of care.

“Not all widely shared health information is accurate, even when it comes from familiar or influential sources,” said co-author Dr. Katherine Kahn, Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the Geffen School. “Using unproven treatments can carry real risks, especially if it delays care that is known to work. Clinicians and health systems play a critical role in helping patients navigate information and make informed decisions.”

Study co-authors are Sitaram Vangala of UCLA and Dr. A Mark Fendrick of the University of Michigan.

The National Institute on Aging (R01AG070017-01) and an NIA Beeson Emerging Leaders in Aging Research Career Development Award (K76AG064392-01A1) supported this study.

The timing of immunotherapy administration influences treatment effectiveness, with morning treatment associated with significantly better survival outcomes, according to new real-world data presented at the EAHP Congress in Barcelona.

Researchers from six hospitals across the Balearic Islands in Spain analysed nearly 9,000 immunotherapy infusions given to 1,175 patients between January 2021 and June 2025. The study examined whether the time of day at which checkpoint inhibitors — pembrolizumab, nivolumab, and atezolizumab — were administered affected overall survival in patients with metastatic cancer.

Patients were divided into two groups based on whether fewer or more than 50% of their doses were given in the afternoon (after 3 pm). The majority of administrations (62.3%) took place in the morning. The cohort was predominantly male (66.4%), with a mean age of 66 years and the most common diagnoses were non-small-cell lung cancer (54%) and small-cell lung cancer (12.7%).

The survival difference between the two groups was striking. Overall survival was not reached in the morning group, compared to just 28.6 months in the afternoon group. The hazard ratio of 0.64 (95% CI 0.53–0.78; p<0.0001) indicates that patients receiving predominantly morning infusions had a 36% lower risk of death during the follow-up period.

These findings align with the emerging field of chronotherapy — the idea that the body’s circadian rhythms influence how well treatments work. Immune function fluctuates throughout the day, and morning administration may coincide with peak immunological activity, enhancing the effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitors.

The authors conclude that where scheduling allows, morning administration of immunotherapy should be prioritised to optimise patient outcomes — a simple, cost-neutral change with potentially significant survival benefits.

Continuous piperacillin/tazobactam infusion via elastomeric pump offers a safe, cost-effective alternative to inpatient antibiotic therapy in paediatric oncology, with measurable benefits for ward capacity, healthcare costs and quality of life.

Bacterial infections are among the most common and serious complications in children with cancer, frequently requiring prolonged antibiotic therapy. Piperacillin/tazobactam (pip/taz) is the established first-line intravenous treatment, but its standard three-times-daily dosing schedule creates a significant logistical burden — particularly for families living far from tertiary care centres. A six-month pilot at Oulu University Hospital (OYS) explored whether continuous pip/taz infusion via elastomeric pump could safely shift this therapy out of the inpatient setting, with meaningful benefits for patients, families and the healthcare system.

Background and rationale

OYS serves children across the Northern Finland collaboration area, a large and sparsely populated region where many families cannot realistically attend three outpatient infusion visits per day. Prior to the pilot, pip/taz therapy therefore required full hospitalisation for the entire treatment course — often three to five days, but sometimes several weeks. Elastomeric pumps, well-established in adult oncology, offered an alternative: continuous 24-hour infusion requiring only once-daily pump replacement, enabling home-based treatment or a single daily outpatient visit.

Methods

The pilot ran from November 2024 to April 2025. Weight-based dosing was established for children weighing 15–37.5 kg, using 120 ml FOLfusor (Baxter) pumps for lighter patients and 240 ml pumps for those weighing 30 kg and above. Children weighing 40 kg or more received the standard adult pump containing 12/1.5 g of pip/taz. Piperacillin was reconstituted at 173 mg/ml; tazobactam calculations were unnecessary given the fixed 4:0.5 ratio of the infusion powder. All pumps were prepared centrally at the hospital pharmacy under cleanroom conditions, with full batch documentation for every dose.

Results

The pilot demonstrated clear clinical and operational benefits. First, children were discharged from hospital earlier; once home, families reported improved appetite and increased physical activity in their children. Second, ward workload fell substantially — 117 hospital days were saved over the six-month period. Each elastomeric pump was priced at €95, a figure that covers the medication, the device itself, all required supplies and materials, and pharmacy preparation costs including personnel, cleanroom facilities, and microbiological monitoring. Compared with the cost of inpatient care, this translated to total savings of €54,000–73,000 over the pilot period. Third, pump therapy was successfully delivered to children throughout the collaboration area, including the smallest eligible patients, with centralised pharmacy preparation supporting consistent medication safety.

Implications for practice

These results confirm that elastomeric pump-delivered pip/taz, long used in adults, can be extended effectively to the paediatric oncology population. The model reduces pressure on inpatient beds, lowers nursing workload and generates significant cost savings — while simultaneously improving quality of life for children and their families during an already demanding period of treatment. On the basis of the pilot’s findings, pump-based pip/taz therapy has been adopted as standard practice at OYS Paediatric Haematology and Oncology.

Healthcare professionals seeking further information may contact the OYS Pharmacy team at elina.smolander@pohde.fi or tiina.kallio@pohde.fi.

But there are few evidence-based interventions to help this age group problem-solve and reduce stress. To address the gap, Rutgers University researchers tested the efficacy of Bright IDEAS, a problem-solving skills training intervention based on cognitive-behavioral therapy, in reducing depression and anxiety and improving their overall health-related quality of life in people ages 18 to 39, which the National Cancer Institute defines as “young adults.”

Their study, published in JAMA Network Open, found young adults who participated in the Bright IDEAS program showed significant reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms and improvements in their quality of life compared with members of the control group.

“Bright IDEAS participants felt less overwhelmed and more empowered,” said Katie Devine, Associate Director of the New Jersey Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Research Center of Excellence at Rutgers Cancer Institute, New Jersey’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center together with RWJBarnabas Health. “This shows that a relatively brief intervention delivered by trained professionals can have a profound impact on patient well-being.”

Bright IDEAS teaches a five-step tactical approach to problem solving (IDEAS is an acronym standing for the steps of problem-solving: Identify the problem, Define your options, Evaluate options, Act and See if it worked) in a positive context (as in “bright”).

“The goal is by improving problem-solving skills, young adults will be better equipped to identify and act on problems and thus reduce symptoms of distress and improve quality of life,” said Devine, an author of the study who also is an associate professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

The Bright IDEAS intervention is completed over six video sessions by licensed mental health professionals or supervised trainees who are trained to deliver the Bright IDEAS program.

“In each session, they address challenges and walk through the problems to identify solutions,” Devine says. “Instead of feeling overwhelmed about how to manage what is happening to them, they become empowered to manage their stressors.”

The study included 344 young adults between 18 and 39 who were within four months of a first cancer diagnosis and who were undergoing systemic therapy such as chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy or stem cell transplant at Rutgers Cancer Institute in New Brunswick, N.J., Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.

Researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial, with half the participants receiving Bright IDEAS and the other half receiving usual psychosocial care of visits with a social worker and provided resources. The participants were surveyed to measure their symptoms at three and six months after enrollment.

“We are next planning a trial in community oncology settings, where most young adults receive their treatment, to make Bright IDEAS more accessible to patients who may not have access to large urban cancer centers,” Devine said.

Other Rutgers authors involved in the study are Sharon Manne, Kristine Levonyan-Radloff, Shengguo Li and Pamela Ohman Strickland.

“Rates of colorectal cancer are rising, but many eligible people are unscreened, especially in community health centers,” said corresponding author Jennifer Haas, MD, MSPH, of the Division of Internal Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine. “CHCs are an important source of care in the United States, especially for under- or uninsured people. Since many CHCs are under-resourced, the goal of our research was to help design an intervention to specifically benefit people who receive care in these settings.”

Haas and colleagues are members of the Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) Colorectal Cancer Health Equity Dream Team that brings together leading researchers, patient advocates, community leaders, and clinicians to accomplish several goals, including improving colorectal cancer screening in medically underserved communities.

In previous studies, mailing stool-based tests to patients increased CRC screenings at CHCs, but, with multiple mail-in tests now available, it was unclear which test and which forms of patient outreach were most effective. In the current study, researchers compared completion rates for participants who received either a mailed fecal immunochemical test (FIT) or FIT-DNA kit. Both are noninvasive, at-home tests that detect blood in the stool. However, the newer FIT-DNA test also identifies abnormal DNA indicative of cancer or pre-cancerous polyps and is repeated every three years (rather than every year). Whereas CHCs bear the costs of mailing FIT tests and conducting patient outreach, the manufacturer of FIT-DNA coordinates mailing for these tests and offers a wrap-around assistance program to support patients through screening test completion.

Participants in the randomized study included adults aged 45-75 years at eight CHCs in Boston and LA.

who were due for CRC screening. Patients were predominantly Hispanic (75%) and on Medicaid (50%). Ultimately, 28% of patients who received FIT-DNA kits completed screening after 90 days, which was significantly higher than the completion rate in those who received FIT kits and automated English or Spanish text-message reminders (23%). The researchers suggest that FIT-DNA screening may have had a higher completion rate due to stronger outreach support through the patient assistance program and the potential for reduced testing frequency.

In a separate, associated study in a tribal site in South Dakota, FIT-DNA kits were associated with an increase in participation in CRC screening. Improving screening is especially important in Native American populations due to their high CRC incidence and low screening rates.

The researchers emphasize the urgency of improving access to diagnostic colonoscopy, which is necessary after a positive stool or blood test. In this study, despite participants with abnormal stool tests receiving phone calls to help educate them about and schedule their colonoscopy, completion rates were only 36% in both the FIT and FIT-DNA groups and were lower in LA than in Boston, perhaps related to access to colonoscopy or differences in insurance coverage.

“Effective screening is essential because it allows us to catch and treat cancer early,” Haas said. “There are evidence-backed, preventive interventions for CRC, but they need to be implemented systematically in a way that addresses barriers for both the CHCs and the patients they are serving. The best screening test will always be the one that people are able to complete.”

Authorship: In addition to Haas, co-authors include Folasade P. May, Suzanne Brodney, Jessica J. Tuan, Sapna Syngal, Andrew T. Chan, Beth Glenn, Gina Johnson Yuchiao Chang, David A. Drew, Beverly Moy, Nicolette J. Rodriguez, Erica T. Warner, Adjoa Anyane-Yeboa, Chinedu Ukaegbu, Anjelica Q. Davis, Kimberly Schoolcraft, Susan Regan, Kelley Le Beaux, Ellen T. Lee, Roopa Bhat, Alexis Gordon, Linh K. Phan,  Andrea Fernanda Cortés Chirino, Caylin J. Marotta, and Rachel G. Z. Kindermann.

Disclosures: May reported being a member of scientific advisory boards with Exact Sciences, Natera, Geneoscopy, and Medtronic during the conduct of the study. Syngal reported grants from Exact Sciences, personal fees from GlaxoSmithKline and Natera outside the submitted work; in addition, Syngal had a patent for PREMM model with royalties paid from Myriad Genetics and Ambry Genetics. Chan reported

personal fees from Pfizer Inc and Boehringer Ingelheim, and grants from Freenome Holdings outside the submitted work. Rodriguez reported grants from Robert A. Winn Excellence in Clinical Trials: Career Development Award during the conduct of the study. Warner reported grants from Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca, and nonfinancial support from Guardant Health outside the submitted work. Anyane-Yeboa reported personal fees from Exact Sciences advisory board during the conduct of the study and personal fees from Takeda Pharmaceuticals advisory board outside the submitted work.

Funding: Authors were supported by a research grant from Stand Up to Cancer, a division of the Entertainment Industry Foundation. Haas also received support from the American Cancer Society (CRP-22-0800-01-CTPS).

Paper cited: May FP et al. “Mailed Outreach for Colorectal Cancer Screening in Community Health Centers” JAMA Internal Medicine DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2026.1170

The study, “Associations Between Perceived Costs and Rewards of Sun Protection and Sun Safety Practices Among High School Students,” published April 21 in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, and simultaneously presented at the 2026 AACR Annual Meeting, collected epidemiologic survey data from more than 2,100 students enrolled in Utah high schools as part of the Sun-safe Habits Intervention and Education (SHINE) trial conducted between 2021 and 2023.

Researchers found that students who viewed sun protection, such as wearing sunscreen or protective clothing, as inconvenient or uncomfortable were significantly less likely to engage in sun-safe behaviors. Similarly, teens who perceived tanning as enhancing appearance or social appeal were less likely to protect themselves from ultraviolet radiation (UVR), a leading cause of skin cancer.

Even after adjusting for demographics and skin cancer knowledge, higher perceived costs of sun protection and greater perceived rewards of tanning were associated with lower engagement in UVR-protective behaviors.

“These data remind us that knowing about the risks of overexposure to the sun isn’t enough to change teens’ behavior,” said the study’s senior author Kenneth P. Tercyak, PhD, professor of oncology, pediatrics, and psychiatry and co-leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. “To do that, we have to understand what they think about the pros and cons of staying safe, and help shift that perspective.”

The authors suggest that school-based skin cancer prevention programs should move beyond risk messaging to incorporate appearance-focused and tailored strategies, such as UV photography or photoaging feedback, to reduce motivational barriers and promote lasting behavior change.

“This study drives home the importance of reaching people early in life with more effective skin cancer prevention strategies that resonate, and working with communities to help lower the cancer burden,” said first author, Omar U. Anwar, a biology student at Georgetown University.

Michelle Janelsins, PhD, MPH, professor of Surgery, Cancer Control, at University of Rochester Medicine, led the study with a team at the Wilmot Cancer Institute. She is a member of Wilmot’s Cancer Prevention and Control research program.

For several years, Wilmot researchers have consistently focused on exercise as an intervention for cancer-related symptoms. They have published groundbreaking studies on how various forms of exercise — walking, resistance bands, yoga — can lessen the burden of cancer-related cognitive issues, fatigue, anxiety, and insomnia. The latest study also had patients taking 200 mg of ibuprofen (one pill) twice a day.

The journal Cancer, of the American Cancer Society, published the latest study, a phase 2 clinical trial.

Up to 80% of patients report brain fog during and after cancer treatment, labeling it “chemo-brain” to describe difficulty with memory, paying attention, and multitasking.

The study showed that both exercise and ibuprofen — alone or in combination — lessened the fog, although exercise appeared to be the most beneficial, even if a person is starting out sedentary or not feeling well on certain days.

“Having patients do as much as they can is better than nothing,” Janelsins said.

Research “Firsts”

Anti-inflammatory medicines in this setting have been studied pre-clinically, but Janelsins believes this is the first study to look at ibuprofen in individuals taking chemotherapy who reported cognitive problems.

One unique way that researchers measured improvement was to note the observations of a patient’s family members and friends.

Another thing that sets this study apart from others, Janelsins said: Researchers intentionally designed the study to address alleviating chemo-brain as an outcome. Another major strength of this study was to include objective, performance-based cognitive tests and patient-reported outcomes.

“We are encouraged by the findings of this trial that suggest possible benefits of both interventions for some cognitive domains. Clearly, we saw a more pronounced effect with exercise, which is notable considering the multiple health benefits of exercise for cancer survivors,” Janelsins said.

Ibuprofen Worked Well, but Exercise is Still Essential

Researchers randomized 86 cancer patients from Rochester and throughout upstate New York, who were receiving chemotherapy and reported cognitive problems, to one of four study arms for six weeks.

The first arm included a proprietary exercise program founded at the URochester Medicine called Exercise for Cancer Patients (EXCAP©®) + low-dose Ibuprofen. The second group received EXCAP plus a placebo; the third group received low-dose Ibuprofen alone, and the fourth group received only a placebo. (EXCAP©® is a home-based, low-to-moderate intensity, progressive walking and resistance exercise prescription.)

After six weeks, participants in the EXCAP plus placebo group demonstrated significantly better attention compared with the placebo group. The ibuprofen-only group also showed greater improvements than the placebo group.

The group who received exercise plus ibuprofen or exercise alone exhibited improvements that were noticeable by family and friends.

The findings suggest that ibuprofen may help improve some cognitive functions, but perhaps to a lesser extent and less consistently than exercise.

Although no adverse events were reported in this study, Janelsins emphasized that patients with chemo-brain should discuss any interventions they are planning to use with their oncology team to avoid potential harmful effects or drug interactions with existing medications.

Janelsins and her team are also analyzing results of a larger, nationwide phase 2 clinical trial that also evaluates low-dose ibuprofen and are planning for phase 3 trials for both exercise and low-dose ibuprofen.

“Since we saw cognitive benefits in some domains and not others,” Janelsins said, “we will also consider additional doses and longer durations in future research trials.”

Importantly, the findings suggest that maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including not smoking, getting sufficient physical activity, lowering red meat consumption, and having a healthy weight may prevent over a quarter of healthy years lost to illness and premature death due to breast cancer worldwide.

“Breast cancer continues to take a profound toll on women’s lives and communities,” said lead author Kayleigh Bhangdia from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, USA. “While those in high-income countries typically benefit from screening and more timely diagnosis and comprehensive treatment strategies, the mounting burden of breast cancer is shifting to low- and lower middle-income countries where individuals often face later-stage diagnosis, more limited access to quality care, and higher death rates that are threatening to eclipse progress in women’s health.”

Using data from population-based cancer registries, vital registration systems, and interviews with family members or caregivers of women who have died from breast cancer, the new analysis provides an updated global, regional, and national analysis of the female breast cancer burden and risk factor estimates from 1990 to 2023 in 204 countries and territories, with forecasts up to 2050. Importantly, the study also estimates the number of years of healthy life that women with breast cancer have lost to illness, disability, and premature death.

Rates of new cases remain highest in HICs, but growing fastest in LICs

Breast cancer remains the most common cancer among women worldwide, with an estimated 2.3 million new breast cancers diagnosed worldwide in women in 2023 (with 73% or 1.67 million cases occurring in high- and upper-middle-income countries) and 764,000 resulting deaths (with 39% or 300,000 deaths occurring in low- and lower-middle-income countries).

When global cases and death rates are adjusted to account for differences in age (to allow comparisons between countries and over time), the study reveals striking inequalities in the burden of breast cancer. For example, in 2023, breast cancer age-standardised incidence rates were on average highest in high-income countries (HICs), including Monaco, Andorra, France, Germany and Ireland (100 new cases per 100,000 women or higher), and lower in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including Afghanistan, Somalia, and Mozambique (13 new cases per 100,000 women or lower) in 2023.

However, age-standardised rates of new cases have risen sharply (up 147% on average) since 1990 in low-income countries (LICs), but remained stable in HICs, highlighting the disproportionate growth occurring in settings with lower resources (see table 1 in the paper).

Moreover, between 1990 and 2023, age-standardised death rates from breast cancer in HICs fell on average 30% to 16 deaths per 100,000 women, but almost doubled in LICs to 24 deaths per 100,000 women, exposing likely disparities in timely diagnosis and access to quality treatment.

Globally, the number of years of healthy life lost due to poor health and early death more than doubled from 11.7 million years in 1990 to 24 million years in 2023. However, although women in low- and lower-middle-countries account for 27% (around 628,000) of new cases globally, they contribute to more than 45% of all the ill-health and early deaths from breast cancer globally (nearly 11 million years of healthy life lost).

“LMICs are hit hardest by escalating breast cancer burden as many of these nations grapple with lifestyle and demographic changes alongside health systems that are less equipped than ideal to respond, with shortages of radiotherapy machines, chemotherapy drugs, and pathology labs, and standard treatments that can be quite costly,” explained co-author Dr Olayinka Ilesanmi, a physician and epidemiologist from Nigeria working for the Africa CDC. “Although survival continues to improve in HICs, reflecting success in breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment, even within HICs, outcomes can still depend on where a woman lives.”

Rise in pre-menopausal breast cancer

Globally, three times as many new breast cancer cases were diagnosed in women aged 55 or older in 2023 (161 vs 50 new cases per 100,000 women) compared to women aged 20-54 years. However, rates of new cases have risen in women aged 20-54 years old (up 29%) since 1990, with rates in older women not changing substantially—these differences may reflect changing age patterns as well as changes in risk factors, which vary between pre- and post-menopausal women.

Impact of uncontrolled risk factors

In 2023, 28% of the global breast cancer burden (6.8 million years of healthy life lost to disability, illness and early death) was linked to six potentially modifiable risk factors. High red meat consumption had the biggest impact (linked to nearly 11% of all healthy life lost), followed by tobacco use (including second-hand smoke; 8%), high blood sugar (6%), high body mass index (BMI; 4%), and high alcohol use and low physically activity (both 2%).

Substantial progress has been made in reducing the global breast cancer burden linked to high alcohol use and tobacco between 1990 and 2023, which declined by 47% and 28%, respectively, while the breast cancer burden linked to other risk factors did not indicate the same progress over time.

“With more than a quarter of the global breast cancer burden linked to six modifiable lifestyle changes there are tremendous opportunities to alter the trajectory of breast cancer risk for the next generation,” said co-senior author Dr Marie Ng, Affiliate Associate Professor at IHME and Associate Professor at National University of Singapore. “Targeting known risk factors through public health policies and making healthier choices more accessible, while working with individuals to take action to reduce obesity and high blood sugar, is crucial to halting the rise in breast cancers worldwide.”

Ensuring all women have an equal chance to survive breast cancer

Even with the best prevention policies, millions of women will still develop breast cancer, which makes closing the care gap an urgent priority. The authors stress that with fair access to care in low-resource settings, investment in innovative therapies, and strong political will, there is an opportunity to ensure that all women have an equal chance to overcome breast cancer.

As Dr Lisa Force, co-senior author from IHME explained, “Collaborative efforts are needed to ensure well-functioning health systems capable of early diagnosis and comprehensive treatment of breast cancer in all countries. Reducing the cost of breast cancer therapies and ensuring that universal health coverage includes breast cancer care essentials would also be valuable in protecting patients from catastrophic costs and improving outcomes.”

While the study uses the best available data, the authors note that the estimates are constrained by a lack of high-quality cancer registry data, particularly in countries with limited resources, highlighting the need to increase investments in cancer surveillance systems. They also note that information on cancer stage at diagnosis and subtype are not included in the analysis despite their distinct survival patterns and resource implications due to data limitations, and the analysis does not analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic or recent conflicts on the disease burden.

Writing in a linked Comment, Professor Yeon Hee Park from Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea (who was not involved with the study) noted that, “Without ethnic or genetic ancestry data, the study cannot distinguish whether observed regional differences reflect genetic predisposition, environmental exposures, health-care disparities, or combinations thereof…Despite these limitations, this study provides a necessary foundation for global health planning…With appropriate refinements, particularly ethnic and genetic ancestry stratification that acknowledges the distinctive molecular signatures of African, Asian, and other ethnic and genetic ancestry populations, this study can achieve its goal of informing evidence-based cancer control strategies worldwide.”

Summary tables of findings:

Table 1

Global breast cancer rates:

Table 2

Country breast cancer rates (for more country-level data, see https://cloud.ihme.washington.edu/s/iDnqW7jaPz7ENcB):


UI = Uncertainty Interval

ASIR = Age-Standardised Incidence Rate

ASMR = Age-Standardised Mortality Rate

The findings were published on Feb. 23, 2026 in CANCER, a journal of the American Cancer Society.

“Over the past several years, we’ve had an increasing appreciation for the important relationship between cancer, its treatment, and mental health,” said lead author Julian Hong, MD, MS, of the University of California, San Francisco. “This study reproduces our prior work by leveraging the shared experience across the University of California system, reinforcing a relationship between mental health conditions and mortality for patients with cancer and highlighting the need to prioritize and manage mental health.”

The researchers used The University of California Data Discovery Platform, in which data on all patients at University of California–affiliated hospitals are recorded.

They identified adult patients with a cancer diagnosis and no documented mental health disorder prior to cancer diagnosis between 2013 and 2023.

Among 371,189 patients, 39,687 (10.6%) developed a mental health disorder within the first year after cancer diagnosis.

After adjusting the data for factors which might affect the primary outcome, the researchers reported that a mental health disorder diagnosis was linked to a 51% higher risk of all-cause death in the initial 1–3 years after cancer diagnosis. This elevated risk decreased to a 17% higher risk after 3–5 years. Then it disappeared.

The authors concluded, “Patients with cancer who experience a mental health condition are at an increased risk of all-cause mortality. This reinforces and emphasizes existing recommendations for prompt screening and management of distress and mental health following a cancer diagnosis.

This finding should offer relief for patients needing long term proton pump inhibitor therapy and is valuable for clinical decision making in healthcare settings, say the researchers.

A fear that proton pump inhibitors could lead to stomach cancer has been ongoing since the 1980s. Recent research has linked their use to around a twofold increased risk, but the literature is hampered by several methodological limitations, making this possible association uncertain.

To help clarify whether long term use of proton pump inhibitors is associated with an increased risk of stomach cancer, researchers designed a study that made extensive efforts to avoid and assess these previous weaknesses.

Their findings are based on healthcare registry data in the five Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden – over a 26-year period from 1994 to 2020.

They identified 17,232 patients with stomach cancer (cases) and randomly matched each one by age, sex, calendar year, and country with 10 healthy participants (controls) from each country’s entire population – a total of 172,297.

They then recorded long term (more than 1 year) use of proton pump inhibitors and histamine-2-receptor antagonists (another class of drugs used to reduce stomach acid) excluding the 12 months before the diagnosis date (cases) or study inclusion date (controls) to prevent the reporting of a potentially false association.

Other factors that may have influenced the results were also accounted for. These included age, sex, Helicobacter pylori eradication treatment (the bacteria implicated in the development of stomach cancer), peptic ulcer disease, smoking and alcohol related diseases, obesity or type 2 diabetes, and use of certain medications.

After adjusting for these factors, the researchers found no remaining association between long term use of proton pump inhibitors or histamine-2-receptor antagonists and increased risk of stomach cancer.

This is an observational study so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. And despite extensive efforts, the authors can’t rule out the possibility that unmeasured factors, such as diet and family history of stomach cancer, may have affected the results.

However, they note that this multinational study based on up to 26 years of high quality registry data allowed them to mitigate many of the biases and other problems affecting previous research on this topic.

As such, they conclude: “The results of this study do not support the hypothesis that long term proton pump inhibitor use is associated with an increased risk of gastric adenocarcinoma.”

“This finding should offer relief for patients needing long term proton pump inhibitor therapy and is valuable for healthcare in clinical decision making,” they add.

Researchers found that between 2012 and 2020, 178,000 Medicare beneficiaries received early access to cancer drugs through the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway. While the pathway aims to give patients faster access to promising treatments, fewer than half of these drugs were later shown to help people live longer.

Key Findings:

• Limited Survival Gains: Only 45% of Medicare beneficiaries who received accelerated approval drugs were treated with drugs that ultimately improved survival.
• Life-Years Added: Early access to accelerated approval drugs delivered an estimated 76,000 extra years of life for Medicare beneficiaries.
• Concentrated Benefits: Just three drugs—for melanoma and lung cancer—accounted for over two-thirds of all extra life-years gained.
• High Cost: Medicare spent over $20 billion more on early access to cancer drugs than on alternative treatments, averaging $263,000 per additional year of life. Costs ranged from $26,000 per life-year for melanoma drugs to $4.5 million per life-year for some breast cancer drugs.

Huseyin Naci, Associate Professor of Health Policy at the London School of Economics, and lead author of the study, said: “Early access to new cancer drugs through FDA’s accelerated approval pathway can save lives, but our findings show that most offered little or no survival benefit while costing Medicare substantial sums. This raises important questions about how to balance rapid access to novel treatments with solid evidence of effectiveness.”

FDA’s accelerated pathway allows new drugs to enter the market based on interim measures rather than waiting for long-term results like overall survival. Pharmaceutical companies are required to run follow-up studies after initial approval to confirm the benefits, but these studies are not always completed. From 1992 to 2020, nearly half of the drugs approved through this pathway were still missing these follow-up studies.

Joseph Ross, Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Yale University and co-author of the study, said: “Treatments which have been approved for use must be followed up with trials measuring overall survival and then appropriate regulatory actions put in place. This will help direct Medicare funds towards treatments with proven clinical benefits.”

Anita Wagner, Associate Professor of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and senior author of the study, added “Importantly, FDA should also clearly communicate the degree of uncertainty about drugs which have had accelerated approvals. This will help clinicians and patients be more informed as they make important health decisions.”

Bladder cancer remains a major clinical challenge as it is one of the most common and deadliest urological cancers with a high recurrence rate. Yet its diagnosis still relies heavily on invasive and costly procedures like cystoscopy (inserting a thin, tube-like instrument through the urethra) or cytology, a noninvasive test that can identify tumor cells shed in urine but has limited sensitivity.

Investigators of the current study were motivated to find a simpler, more comfortable way to detect and monitor bladder cancer. They analyzed urine samples from 156 patients with bladder cancer and 79 matched controls and using real-time PCR, measured the concentration and integrity (long-short size distribution) of cfDNA fragments from five genes (ACTB, AR, MYC, BCAS1, and STOX1).

“Our most significant finding was that the small fragment of the MYC gene may represent a valuable tool to diagnose bladder cancer, as it exhibited excellent specificity (97%) and predictive value (88%) for identifying muscle-invasive bladder cancer,“ explains lead investigator Pilar Medina, PhD, Haemostasis, Thrombosis, Arteriosclerosis and Vascular Biology Research Group, Health Research Institute Hospital La Fe (IIS La Fe), Valencia, Spain.

MYC produces a transcription factor crucial for regulating cell growth, proliferation, and metabolism.

Additionally, researchers found that the ratio of large to small fragments of the housekeeping gene ACTB and the small fragment of the AR gene increased with disease severity, suggesting these could be reliable staging biomarkers. The integrity of these genes may be useful to identify bladder cancer relapse.

Lead author Raquel Herranz, MS, Haemostasis, Thrombosis, Arteriosclerosis and Vascular Biology Research Group, Health Research Institute Hospital La Fe (IIS La Fe), Valencia, Spain, notes, “With growing interest in liquid biopsies and personalized medicine, our study offers a timely and practical alternative to invasive diagnostics. This study is one of the first to comprehensively evaluate urine cfDNA fragmentation and integrity across most bladder cancer stages, bringing us closer to a future in which bladder cancer can be diagnosed and monitored through a simple urine test, improving patient comfort and care.”

Dr. Medina concludes, “Our findings show that urine can tell us much more than we thought; it holds the potential to transform how we detect and manage bladder cancer.”