Selected Articles from This Issue

Identifying changes in geographical disparities of cancer mortality can reveal locations where cancer prevention and control efforts should be focused/targeted. Luo and colleagues used the CDC 2018 to 2022 county-level mortality data and unified statistical methods to demonstrate the geographical disparity in colorectal, lung, breast and prostate cancer mortality in the United States. Compared to the hotspots reported in literature, West Central Appalachia and lower Mississippi Delta continue to be hotspots for major cancer types, East Oklahoma and North Florida emerged as the new hotspots for lung cancer, and several hotspots emerged in the West for prostate cancer. This study illustrates recent changes in the disparity pattern and pinpointing areas that cancer prevention and control efforts should target.The immune landscape of colorectal cancer is complex, involving numerous cell subsets with diverse roles and, potentially, distinct relationships to colorectal cancer survival. In this study of 1,113 colorectal cancer participants, Xie and colleagues used multispectral immunofluorescence to profile T-cell subsets in both tumor epithelial and stromal regions. The authors found that higher densities of CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD8+ naive, memory, and regulatory T cells were significantly associated with better colorectal cancer-specific survival, independent of stage at diagnosis and microsatellite instability status. These findings highlight the prognostic relevance of T-cell subsets in colorectal cancer—across tumor regions and cell function.Temporal trends of cancer survival are a crucial part of cancer surveillance and control. The commonly used measure of age standardized net survival has an awkward interpretation often leading to confusion and misunderstanding. Lambert and colleagues describe using reference adjusted measures of all-cause survival and crude probabilities of death with an example of women diagnosed with breast cancer in Norway. The reference adjusted measures lead to improved understanding and are of more relevance to patients and policy makers who live and make decisions in the real world.This large population-based cohort study by Kim and colleagues examined the associations of central obesity, general obesity, and lipid profiles with the risk of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in nearly 3.9 million Korean adults. Larger waist circumference and higher body mass index were associated with an increased risk of CML, particularly among women, while HDL cholesterol levels were associated with a decreased risk, especially in men. These findings suggest that modifiable metabolic factors may contribute to the development of CML and raise the possibility that lifestyle interventions—such as weight management and lipid regulation—could have clinical relevance in risk reduction interventions.