Practice Points

Head-to-head comparisons of the effectiveness of radiotherapy and surgery are not often – or easily – performed. Yet, for some types and stages of cancer, there is an increasingly apparent need for hard evidence about their comparative risks and benefits…

Recent decades have seen major advances in how we treat cancer, leading to significant improvements in survival rates. For example, women who are diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer today are 66% less likely to die from the disease within five…

There is not a dull moment when Tulasi Singh is around. She makes sure that the women’s hall on the fifth floor of the Gadge Maharaj Dharamshala, a subsidised hostel for cancer patients close to the Tata Memorial Hospital in…

The success of treatment cessation in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), outlined in an earlier Cancerworld feature, is opening the way for treatment breaks – or cessation with monitoring – to be considered in advanced solid tumours, including breast, kidney, colorectal,…

In Africa, women's infertility carries a heavy stigma; it becomes their label. Many end up feeling worthless, face harsh treatment from in-laws, abandonment by spouses, or relegation to polygamous marriages, as husbands take additional wives capable of bearing children. For…

“Did you remember to bring the sunscreen?” Public awareness of the need to protect against the risk of melanoma from excessive exposure to UV rays from the sun has risen dramatically over recent decades. ‘Bringing the sunscreen’ is now a…

Around the start of the millennium, the therapeutic landscape for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), a rare type of blood cancer affecting the bone marrow and white blood cells, was transformed by the arrival of a revolutionary cancer drug. This was…

'Cancer’ is the weightiest of words. Jacky remembers the impact those two short syllables had when she was given her results after tests for breast cancer. “I went into this little room and they told me that I had cancer…

Four years ago, clinical trials were little discussed in oncology circles in Kenya. In common with the rest of East  Africa, there was no clinical research unit to study treatments for non-communicable diseases such as cancer. No cancer patient living…

“Cigarettes are shit.” The slogan is neither creative nor informative, yet it had an impact beyond all expectations in Poland in 1994. These were the early days of post-communism: tobacco companies were making the most of the opportunities of the…