Articles
How organoids could help match treatments to tumours
When diagnosed with cancer, few things are more important than having confidence that the treatment you are prescribed is the best possible option for you. For many cancers, particularly the more common ones, the evidence for choosing one option over…
Delivering cervical cancer screening across India: the plan… and the practice
Gynaecologist Shalini Singh remembers the Pap smears she carried out until around twenty years ago, when she was working at the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences, in New Delhi. “We had about 15 Pap smear bottles per day…
Getting the message across: we need to learn from the Covid experience
One of the big lessons of the Covid pandemic has been the critical importance of good communication – how challenging it is to get complex medical information across to the general public, and the damage that poor communication can do.…
Begging for imatinib: why do so many patients still lack access to this lifesaver?
Following doctor’s orders doesn’t usually mean making a two-hour round trip to visit your hospital twice a week to beg for any spare medication on the off-chance that someone has had to change to a different drug, or was able…
A call to action: how Poland is stepping up for Ukraine’s cancer patients
February 24, 2022. Julia, a lawyer living near Kiev, is counting down the days until her last chemo. After which she will still face surgery and radiation therapy on her way to recovering from breast cancer. Before dawn, she wakes…
Unicorns for Ukraine: mobilising to meet patients’ changing cancer care needs
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, consultant clinical oncologist Mohammed Hojouj put out a call for help: “Cancers do not stop growing because there is a war. But cancer patients stop being seen as a priority.” The story he…
Long-term health: is it time to update the priorities of cancer research?
“I was told that cancer was a temporary condition ‒ just get through treatment and things will go back to normal. I quickly realised that this is not true.” Gregory Aune was treated for Hodgkin’s disease when he was 17.…
India’s Lung Connect shows value of online cancer support in low-income settings
It was April 2020. Just a few weeks earlier, India had imposed a national lockdown – among the harshest in the world. Ramkrishna Bhadhury, 44, a farmer from a small village in Nalikul, West Bengal, was feeling increasingly dejected and…
Preventing burnout: are we too focused on personal resilience?
Burnout. That short word barely conveys the dispirited cycle of weariness, negativity and powerlessness health staff experience when high aspirations to help and cure are consumed in an unattainable to-do list. “You're trying your best but nothing's moving and you…
Surviving childhood cancer in Africa: helping families stick with the treatment plan is key
Faced with poverty, low maternal education and fears about treatment effects, many families in sub-Saharan Africa are abandoning cancer treatment for children and young people, harming chances of survival. In Kenya and Zambia, for instance, treatments for childhood cancers are…