A potential response to cancer is written — on a microscopic level — in its very tumor cells. For decades, treatment and prognosis of the disease has been largely determined by the organ, the anatomical location in which the cancerous mass is located. But now, science has placed a spotlight on something more ambitious: learning the tumor’s signature, or rather, the molecular alterations that characterize its malignant cells. The latest meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which took place last weekend in Chicago, has given further impetus to precision oncology and highlighted how cancer biology, those microscopic genetic characteristics that define it, are playing an increasingly important role in determining therapeutic approach, and even predicting prognosis.

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A groundbreaking cancer treatment hailed as one of the most promising advances in oncology is set to be tested in Portugal after delivering what experts described as “unprecedented” results in

The post Breakthrough cancer injection to be tested in Portugal after “unprecedented” trial results appeared first on Portugal Resident.

A glance at Winette Van der Graaf’s extensive résumé is enough to certify that this Dutch oncologist has been an exceptional witness, if not a fundamental part, of the great scientific revolution that cancer research has undergone in recent decades. An expert in sarcomas and cancers in teens and young adults, Van der Graaf was one of the pioneers in providing care — and personalized assistance — to people between the ages of 15 and 39 who develop cancer. Sometimes in no man’s land, halfway between pediatric and adult oncology, cancer at this age puts life “on hold,” says Van der Graaf.

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In 2021, Miriam González, a 35-year-old from Murcia, Spain, went to the doctor because she was bleeding from her breast. She was told to relax: everything was normal. But in 2024, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And, shortly afterward, she discovered it was metastatic, at stage four.

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