Selected Articles from This Issue

Evidence of a chemopreventive association between NSAIDs and pancreatic cancer risk is limited and conflicting. Randomized trials focus primarily on low-dose aspirin with few pancreatic cancer cases, while observational studies examining individual NSAIDs other than aspirin, or NSAIDs as a class, are scarce. Brasky and colleagues studied self-reported NSAID use and pancreatic cancer risk over 18 years in the Women’s Health Initiative, finding aspirin significantly reduced risk. No associations were observed for other formulations. In an exploratory analysis, the authors observed stronger associations for aspirin among women with prevalent diabetes. More large, prospective studies are needed to explore this association further.National guidelines recommend fertility counseling for reproductive-age cancer patients who will receive gonadotoxic treatment. To enact fertility preservation, female patients must access a specialized fertility clinic. Rodriguez-Ormaza and colleagues assessed travel time to the nearest fertility clinic at diagnosis and receipt of fertility counseling. Women who lived ≥30 minutes from a fertility clinic were 13% less likely to receive fertility counseling from the oncology team and 49% less likely to receive counseling by a fertility specialist compared to women who lived closer. Geographic barriers to timely fertility counseling merit creative solutions to improve accessibility to preventive services and receipt of guideline-concordant counseling.Although African Americans have higher incidence and mortality rates for lung cancer than non-Hispanic Whites, the immune response in this patient population has been poorly studied. In a study of African American and non-Hispanic White patients, Trendowski and colleagues identify key differences in immune cell composition and transcriptomic signatures that suggest racial variation within the tumor microenvironment may help refine the implementation of immunotherapy. Ultimately, this study is an initial step towards making immunotherapy more equitable for a patient population at high risk of lung cancer, and potentially reduce the disparities these individuals experience when receiving cancer therapy.Incident obstructive uropathy may mark an increased short- and long-term risk of cancer and increased cancer mortality. In a nationwide cohort of 37,275 adult patients with first-time obstructive uropathy, nearly 10% received a first-time cancer diagnosis within 3 months of follow-up. For most cancer types, the excess cancer risk was confined to the first year of follow-up. The 7,485 patients diagnosed with cancer after an obstructive uropathy diagnosis had elevated mortality compared with cancer patients without obstructive uropathy, even when taking stage and comorbidity into consideration. These findings from Nørgaard and colleagues can inform the follow-up recommendations for obstructive uropathy.