Cancer journalPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-01-27DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000804
Brittney Chau, Eric Lin Chang, Adam Garsa
{"title":"Modern Radiosurgery Approaches for Brain Metastases.","authors":"Brittney Chau, Eric Lin Chang, Adam Garsa","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000804","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000804","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Brain metastases affect up to 30% of cancer patients and can cause significant neurological effects. Treatment of brain metastases requires a multidisciplinary approach with surgery, radiation modalities, and systemic therapy all playing a specialized role in its management. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a specialized type of highly conformal radiation therapy, allowing for high doses to be focally delivered to the tumor, while causing a sharp dose falloff to the surrounding normal tissues. SRS is utilized for both intact brain metastases and postoperative surgical resection cavities. SRS has shown good local control, similar survival outcomes to whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT), and superior preservation of neurocognition compared with WBRT. Ongoing prospective studies are investigating the use of SRS in the setting of patients with 5 or more brain metastases, preoperative SRS, and the timing of administration of SRS with respect to systemic therapy.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146028461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-01-27DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000808
Adannia Ufondu, Jana Haroun, Samuel Chao, Praveen Pendyala
{"title":"Innovative Diagnostic and Therapeutic Approaches for Radiation Necrosis.","authors":"Adannia Ufondu, Jana Haroun, Samuel Chao, Praveen Pendyala","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000808","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000808","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Radiation necrosis (RN) is a serious complication of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), affecting ∼5% to 25% of patients treated for brain metastases. Because RN is a late effect of radiation therapy with a typical onset of 6 to 12 months after treatment, the incidence of RN is expected to rise as advancements in systemic therapy prolong survival among patients with brain metastases. The exact radiobiological mechanisms behind RN are still unclear but likely driven by a self-sustaining feedback loop involving vascular injury, ischemia, neuroinflammation and perivascular fibrosis. Although multiple diagnostic tools are currently used or being investigated to help distinguish RN from tumor progression (TP), including MR perfusion, MR spectroscopy, and Amino Acid PET/CT, the clinical utility of each of these tools is limited by suboptimal specificity, lesion size criteria, limited access and susceptibility to treatment-related factors such as prior bevacizumab. First line management of symptomatic RN is steroids, with escalation to bevacizumab or aggressive, local therapies such as LITT and resection for steroid refractory RN. Refining our understanding of normal brain tissue dose tolerances, characterizing the safety profile of concurrent administration of SRS with different precision systemic therapies and integrating novel risk stratification tools such as the Recursive Partitioning Analysis (RPA) for RN will be key to reducing the risk of RN after SRS. These prevention strategies along with the development of novel therapies informed by enhanced insight into the pathophysiology of RN promise to improve long-term quality of life for patients with brain metastases.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146028414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-01-27DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000805
Hang Yu, Hany Soliman, Kang Liang Zeng, Chia-Lin Tseng, Jay Detsky, Hanbo Chen, Greg J Stanisz, Rachel W Chan, Charles H Cunningham, Nicole I C Cappelletto, Angus Lau, Paula Alcaide Leon, Sunit Das, Chinthaka Heyn, Arjun Sahgal, Pejman Jabehdar Maralani
{"title":"Advanced Imaging Techniques for the Detection and Follow-up of Brain Metastases.","authors":"Hang Yu, Hany Soliman, Kang Liang Zeng, Chia-Lin Tseng, Jay Detsky, Hanbo Chen, Greg J Stanisz, Rachel W Chan, Charles H Cunningham, Nicole I C Cappelletto, Angus Lau, Paula Alcaide Leon, Sunit Das, Chinthaka Heyn, Arjun Sahgal, Pejman Jabehdar Maralani","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000805","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000805","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Optimal management of patients with brain metastases relies on both accurate detection on initial imaging and accurate differentiation between treatment-related effects from progression on follow-up imaging. Contrast-enhanced MRI remains the standard technique for initial and follow-up imaging, though advanced MRI techniques, such as perfusion MRI, diffusion-weighted MRI, MR spectroscopy, and chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST), have also emerged as complementary examinations, particularly in distinguishing TRE from true progression. Molecular imaging with PET, especially using amino acid tracers, also demonstrates high diagnostic accuracy in discriminating between treatment-related effects and tumour progression. Artificial intelligence models, including those using radiomics and deep learning approaches, have been developed to enhance diagnostic performance and to streamline workflow. However, their clinical utility is limited by significant inter-study heterogeneity, lack of standardization, and lack of large-scale external validation. This review summarizes the current literature on advanced imaging techniques in BM diagnosis and response assessment.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146028477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2025-11-01Epub Date: 2025-11-18DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000801
Edward S Kim
{"title":"Decoding Destiny: Can We Deliver Artificial Intelligence-Powered Patient-centered Care?","authors":"Edward S Kim","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/PPO.0000000000000801","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"31 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145539257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2025-11-01Epub Date: 2025-11-18DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000796
Jennifer H Benbow, Edward S Kim
{"title":"Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Transform Clinical Trials and Cancer Care: Opportunities and Challenges.","authors":"Jennifer H Benbow, Edward S Kim","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000796","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000796","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is working toward the reality of speeding up oncology drug development, offering the ability to cut years off the pipeline while maintaining patient safety and personalized care. Machine learning (ML) models analyze historical and real-world data to optimize eligibility criteria, simulate in silico cohorts, flag protocol risks, and recommend real-time adaptations. Natural language processing enhances patient screening by extracting patient data from electronic health records to match diverse patient populations to trials faster than traditional methods. AI-driven analysis of data from electronic wearables and imaging enables early toxicity and efficacy signals, allowing providers real-time monitoring. However, the same code that accelerates technology can also amplify bias, increase data security issues, hallucinate unsafe recommendations, and raise legal and ethical alarms. Safeguards, including transparent model reporting, bias mitigation, robust cybersecurity, clinician oversight, and education for providers and patients, are essential. Harnessed responsibly, AI can transform clinical trials and oncology care without sacrificing empathy, accountability, and patient-centered values.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"31 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145539226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2025-11-01Epub Date: 2025-11-18DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000800
Elyssa N Kim, Krisstina Gowin, Anne Reb, Diya Sandhu, Erica Veguilla, Finly Zachariah, Richard T Lee
{"title":"Artificial Intelligence in Supportive Oncology and Symptom Management Opportunities.","authors":"Elyssa N Kim, Krisstina Gowin, Anne Reb, Diya Sandhu, Erica Veguilla, Finly Zachariah, Richard T Lee","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000800","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000800","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming medical care, including in oncology, offering promising avenues for enhancing supportive care and symptom management. This review synthesizes current research on AI applications in this critical domain, exploring its potential to personalize interventions and improve patient-reported outcomes in oncology supportive care. We examine AI-driven tools for symptom monitoring, predictive analytics for adverse events, and personalized supportive care recommendations. Emphasis is placed on the integration of machine learning algorithms for real-time data analysis, enabling proactive interventions and timely symptom relief. We highlight challenges in translating AI-based solutions into clinical practice, including data privacy, algorithm bias, applicability for all patients, and the need for rigorous validation studies. Ultimately, the integration of AI in supportive oncology holds the potential to revolutionize patient-centered care, optimizing symptom control and improving the quality of life for individuals facing cancer.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"31 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145539303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2025-11-01Epub Date: 2025-11-18DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000799
Urmila Kulkarni Kale, Gorkey Vemulapalli
{"title":"Integrating AI into the Clinical Workflows Across the Cancer Care Continuum: Opportunities and Challenges.","authors":"Urmila Kulkarni Kale, Gorkey Vemulapalli","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000799","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000799","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cancer cases are projected to hit 35 million worldwide by 2050, posing a significant burden on health care systems. The cancer care continuum has evolved to precision medicine practices, provisioning personalized treatments based on multimodal and multiomics data. Contextual analysis of such diverse, voluminous, spatiotemporal patient data is beyond human cognitive capacity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are reshaping the data mining paradigm in healthcare by delivering novel data-led insights in real time. AI-based methods for cancer risk predictions, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics are developed, validated, and approved, indicating readiness for integration in clinical workflows. Additional validation of AI models using real-world data representing diverse populations is recommended to address clinical, technical, regulatory, ethical, and legal challenges, along with trust issues. Integrating AI tools into cancer care workflows to augment clinical decision-making, without compromising clinical autonomy and patient safety, is essential to address the increasing demand for cancer care by 2050.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"31 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145539210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2025-11-01Epub Date: 2025-11-18DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000798
Dan Mapes
{"title":"Active Inference AI and the Spatial Web for Medicine: A New Paradigm for Medical Research, Treatment, and Education.","authors":"Dan Mapes","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000798","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000798","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A new branch of artificial intelligence called Active Inference AI is changing the very foundations of how medical knowledge is created, applied, and taught. And this new AI is combining with an entirely new evolution of the Internet, called the Spatial Web, which is changing how medical knowledge will be shared globally. Active Inference AI and the Spatial Web have been developed together to create a powerful new environment for medicine and science in general to evolve to an entirely new level. Until now, large-scale AI models called LLMs (Large Language Models) have been dominating the AI marketplace. But these are general-purpose AIs. They are expensive to create, they are massively data-hungry, and they are imprecise and not designed for specialized domains like medicine. In contrast, this new Active Inference AI-inspired by neuroscience-is designed specifically for medicine and other applications requiring high accuracy and explainable results. This new AI does not use LLM technology but relies on small, domain-specific models built from expert-curated knowledge graphs and factor graphs. This novel approach enables reasoning, learning, and decision-making within well-defined medical contexts, allowing for the precision, adaptability, and interpretability missing in LLMs. This report outlines how Active Inference AI can: (1) accelerate medical research by simulating hypotheses and causal pathways. (2) Enhance medical treatment through adaptive, real-time digital twins and precision diagnostics. (3) Revolutionize medical education by creating dynamic, interactive, and semantically accurate learning environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"31 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145539118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2025-11-01Epub Date: 2025-11-18DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000797
Dipesh Niraula, Monique O Shotande, Issam El Naqa
{"title":"Human-machine Interaction in the Age of Generative AI.","authors":"Dipesh Niraula, Monique O Shotande, Issam El Naqa","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000797","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000797","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) powered technologies are increasingly integrated across virtually all fields, including oncology, poised to fundamentally transform human-machine interaction (HMI). In biomedicine and oncology, Gen-AI tools are forming the foundation for intuitive patient-facing and clinician-facing interfaces that increase accessibility and efficiency of health care applications, enhance patient experience, and improve clinical workflows, ultimately optimizing patient outcomes. Despite Gen-AI's great potential in health care, limitations related to data quality and learning algorithms can create persistent challenges to patient safety, warranting a thorough HMI evaluation by end-users and experts that goes beyond traditional statistical validation. In parallel, a legal framework for assigning liability among developers, deployers, maintainers, and end-users is essential to ensure fairness and promote safe and beneficial application of clinical AI.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"31 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145539223","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer journalPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-09-25DOI: 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000787
Emeka E Duru, Kwame Kissi-Twum, Kenechukwu C Ben-Umeh, T Joseph Mattingly
{"title":"Advancing Federal Coordination to Address Drug Shortages.","authors":"Emeka E Duru, Kwame Kissi-Twum, Kenechukwu C Ben-Umeh, T Joseph Mattingly","doi":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000787","DOIUrl":"10.1097/PPO.0000000000000787","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Persistent shortages of essential medicines in the United States, especially generic oncology drugs, continue to compromise timely cancer care and patient safety. The presence of multiple high-level reports from federal agencies and industry experts has outlined similar recommendations, including the creation of a unified essential medicines list, transparent supply chain monitoring, domestic manufacturing incentives, and centralized federal coordination, among others, giving an optimistic direction. This manuscript synthesizes key findings from these reports and highlights misalignment across agency roles and priorities as a barrier to sustained progress. Case studies of cisplatin, vincristine, and methotrexate shortages underscore the high stakes of inaction. Drawing on recent coordination successes during the COVID-19 response, we propose a practical path forward: establishing a central federal coordinating body, legislating an essential medicines list developed using an established criticality-reach-vulnerability framework, reforming procurement incentives, and expanding the Strategic National Stockpile.</p>","PeriodicalId":9655,"journal":{"name":"Cancer journal","volume":"31 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145147886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}