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By Nancy Lapid, Health Science Editor

Hello Health Rounds readers! Today’s newsletter features technological advances that could help patients with two of the deadliest cancers live longer – an AI tool that allowed researchers to predict the risk of pancreatic cancer years before typical diagnosis, and a cancer-cell test that helped select the best course of treatment for glioblastoma brain tumors. We also look at a low-cost program that appears to help people with disabling chronic lower back pain.

In breaking news, see these stories from our Reuters journalists: US panel drops mammography screening age back to 40; WHO declares end to COVID global health emergency; and abortion pill case to be heard by conservative, anti-abortion panel.

We also have industry updates on Novavax‘s COVID, flu vaccines; Eyenovia’s pupil-dilating spray; Baxter‘s sale of its biopharma business for $4.25 billion; animal-testing conflicts at Musk’s brain-chip startup; Philips’ delivery of equipment to Russia, and Viatris’ 2023 sales forecast.

Please join Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla and Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni at a Reuters Newsmaker Interview on May 11. With enormous profits after two years of success with COVID vaccines and treatment, Bourla has scoped out new territory in the cancer sector with a $43 billion cancer biotech acquisition.

An artificial intelligence tool used medical records to identify people at the highest risk for pancreatic cancer up to three years before diagnosis in a recent study.

When pancreatic cancer is diagnosed early, about 44% of patients survive at least five years, but only 12% of cases are diagnosed early enough for that outcome. When newly diagnosed pancreas cancers have already metastasized, less than 10% of patients are still alive five years later.

While there are inexpensive tests to monitor for breast, cervix, and prostate cancers, no such tools exist for early detection of pancreatic cancer.

Without a clear indication that someone is at high risk for pancreatic cancer, doctors cannot order expensive tests such as computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans just for screening, the researchers said in their report published in Nature Medicine.

Their new AI tool was developed and trained using 9 million patient records from Denmark and the United States. It learned to identify patterns suggesting increased risk of pancreatic cancer within the next three years based on whether patients had certain conditions that occurred in a certain sequence over time. Those conditions included diabetes, jaundice, gallstones, anemia, high cholesterol, other diseases of the pancreas, obesity, weight loss, inflammatory bowel disease, and colon cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers in the world and its toll is projected to increase, the researchers said.

“With a reasonably accurate method for predicting cancer risk, one can direct appropriate high-risk patients into surveillance programs,” and focus expensive screening tests on those individuals, they concluded.

A new test of tumor cells prolongs survival for patients with glioblastoma, the aggressive brain cancer that killed U.S. Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy.

The assay, developed by Cordgenics LLC and called ChemoID, tests the effects of different cancer drugs on so-called cancer stem cells, which the tumor uses to grow.

At the University of Cincinnati, 78 patients whose glioblastoma had returned after initial treatment were randomly assigned to receive commercially available chemotherapy drugs based on ChemoID results or chosen by their doctors using usual criteria including guidelines and insurance considerations.

Those who had their treatments selected through ChemoID had a 56% lower risk of death during the ongoing study, according to the report in Cell Reports Medicine.

In the ChemoID group, half the patients went at least 10.1 months without their disease progressing. In the physician-choice group, half the patients had experienced tumor growth by 3.5 months, the researchers reported.

Patients in the ChemoID group also survived an average of 3.5 months longer, they reported.

“Where survival in recurrent glioblastoma is extremely poor, 3.5 months or more is wonderful,” study leader Dr. Soma Sengupta said in a statement. “Some of my patients on this trial are still alive.”

If the anti-cancer therapy that targets cancer stem cells is incorporated earlier in the treatment plan, ineffective treatments will be eliminated, and patients will be able to receive the maximum therapeutic benefit, Cordgenics Chief Operating Officer Jagan Valluri said in a statement.

A physiotherapy program designed specifically for patients with chronic, disabling low back pain can produce “large and sustained improvements” at considerably lower cost than usual care, according to a report published in The Lancet.

The technique – Cognitive Functional Therapy (CFT) – focuses on changing the patient’s beliefs, confronting their fears, educating them about pain mechanisms, increasing their mental strength, and controlling their body.

At 20 clinics in Australia, researchers randomly assigned 492 adults with low back pain lasting more than three months and at least moderate pain-related physical activity limitation to receive either usual care, CFT only, or CFT plus wearable biofeedback sensors.

Participants in the two CFT groups received up to seven sessions over 12 weeks plus a booster session at 26 weeks. Those in the usual care group received whatever their healthcare providers recommended, such as physiotherapy, massage, chiropractic care, pain medicines, injections, or surgery.

At 13 weeks, “both interventions were more effective than usual care… and much less expensive in terms of direct and indirect costs and productivity losses,” the researchers said.

Biofeedback did not add to the effectiveness of CFT, they found.

Patients’ improvements lasted until the end of the one-year follow-up period, “which is unusual in chronic low back pain,” the authors said.

“That the biofeedback device was no more effective than the placebo device is good news for low-income and middle-income countries where healthcare resources might be scarce,” an editorial published with the study said.

This newsletter was edited by Bill Berkrot.

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