The Digital Health Revolution: Exploring the Impact of Online Cancer Information on Self-Reported Preventive Behaviors.

Cancer, one of the leading causes of death worldwide, is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth within the body. While there have been many improvements in the treatment of cancer clinically, there is now an urgent need to improve cancer-related communication. This study explores the impact of online health information, specifically cancer-related information and prevention, among members of the general public. Through a randomized survey, we examined what information leads people to take action to minimize their cancer risk and communicate with their providers. Through evaluation of the various modes of communication, we were able to provide insight into which are more effective and better received by members of the general public. Through this, ways of bettering these avenues of communication and strengthening the bond between them will be highlighted and more easily elaborated on by future studies. The results of our study indicated that 60% of participants asserted that they are motivated by online preventive information to take steps to limit their cancer risk, while only roughly 44% of participants overall agreed that their doctor has communicated with them about when proper cancer screenings should be scheduled for the future. Although patients may be turning to the Internet now more than ever due to various reasons, when comparing self-reported rates of comprehension among the study participants, 35% agreed that the cancer-related information they can access online is confusing, while fewer than 22% of participants agreed that the cancer-related information they receive directly from their doctor is confusing. This is indicative of the limitations the Internet may have when undertaking the role of being a medical resource, especially when acting as a replacement for in-person medical appointments where patients can communicate directly with their physicians. Ultimately, these results provide a unique perspective into how people receive, evaluate, and implement cancer-preventive steps and general health-related information in a post-COVID-19 world, where the Internet is now strongly embedded in healthcare.

Stronger Together: Cancer Clones Cooperate to Alleviate Growth Barriers in Critical Cancer Progression Transitions.

Hershey and colleagues recently showed how clones in a triple-negative breast cancer cell line cooperate for their mutual fitness benefit. In this system, clones exchange soluble metabolites to increase their in vitro growth rate at low population densities, therefore mitigating the documented growth barrier that reduces individual fitness in small tumor cell populations (Allee effect). Such cooperation could aid important transitions in cancer progression in which cancer cell populations are small, like invasion or metastasis. Using orthotopic transplantation, the authors demonstrate that this cooperation is functional in one such transition in vivo, increasing the metastatic load and number of metastases, which are usually polyclonal. Together, these findings highlight the need to consider ecologic interactions to properly understand tumor growth dynamics, and how they complement the standing evolutionary model of cancer progression in our quest to understand and treat cancer.

The relationship between diet, plasma glucose, and cancer prevalence across vertebrates.

Could diet and mean plasma glucose concentration (MPGluC) explain the variation in cancer prevalence across species? We collected diet, MPGluC, and neoplasia data for 160 vertebrate species from existing databases. We found that MPGluC negatively correlates with cancer and neoplasia prevalence, mostly of gastrointestinal organs. Trophic level positively correlates with cancer and neoplasia prevalence even after controlling for species MPGluC. Most species with high MPGluC (50/78 species = 64.1%) were birds. Most species in high trophic levels (42/53 species = 79.2%) were reptiles and mammals. Our results may be explained by the evolution of insulin resistance in birds which selected for loss or downregulation of genes related to insulin-mediated glucose import in cells. This led to higher MPGluC, intracellular caloric restriction, production of fewer reactive oxygen species and inflammatory cytokines, and longer telomeres contributing to longer longevity and lower neoplasia prevalence in extant birds relative to other vertebrates.

Cancer Prevalence Across Vertebrates.

Cancer is pervasive across multicellular species, but what explains differences in cancer prevalence across species? Using 16,049 necropsy records for 292 species spanning three clades (amphibians, sauropsids and mammals) we found that neoplasia and malignancy prevalence increases with adult weight (contrary to Peto's Paradox) and somatic mutation rate, but decreases with gestation time. Evolution of cancer susceptibility appears to have undergone sudden shifts followed by stabilizing selection. Outliers for neoplasia prevalence include the common porpoise (<1.3%), the Rodrigues fruit bat (<1.6%) the black-footed penguin (<0.4%), ferrets (63%) and opossums (35%). Discovering why some species have particularly high or low levels of cancer may lead to a better understanding of cancer syndromes and novel strategies for the management and prevention of cancer.