A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week compared minimally invasive and open surgeries for early stage cervical cancer. This prospective randomized trial of 631 participants at 33 medical centers found that patients who had open surgery had higher disease-free survival rates (96.5% at 4.5 years) than those who had minimally invasive surgery (86% at 4.5 years). In reporting the study, the New York Times spoke to numerous gynecologic oncologists, many of whom had heard about the results prior to publication and had already begun changing their approaches to cervical cancer treatment. MSK’s Dr. Ginger Gardner said that the hospital is reviewing its surgical results and making case-by-case surgical decisions in consultation with patients.

What happens when you ask cancer immunologists to draw their work? Neil Canavan found out when he asked nearly 50 scientists to do just that. Many of these drawings—some rough diagrams, some comic book-ready—are featured in a recent article from STAT. They include one by 2018 Nobel Prize winner—and former MSK researcher—Dr. James Allison, and another by MSK’s Dr. Michel Sadelain. More drawings can be found in Mr. Canavan’s recent book, A Cure Within: Scientists Unleashing the Immune System to Kill Cancer, which can be checked out from the MSK Library.

Today’s Science Sparks on the Library display screen.

Images are engaging ways to describe scientific concepts. Every weekday, the Library features an image from an MSK-authored publication on its homepage, an initiative we call Today’s Science Sparks (click here for the archive). These images are also displayed on the screen by the Library’s information desk. Next time you are in the Library, check out the screen—your graphic could be on it!

Last Monday, Dr. James Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel Prize in the category of Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to the development of cancer immunotherapy drugs. As MSK’s Dr. Jedd Wolchok told the Associated Press, “An untold number of lives … have been saved by the science that they pioneered.” Dr. Allison, now at MD Anderson Cancer Center, worked on this research in part while chair of the Immunology Program at MSK.

Two articles from Vox put the research into a larger context. The first explains that with Dr. Allison and Dr. Honjo’s findings, up to 15-20 percent of patients with advanced melanoma and lung cancer can now benefit from precise checkpoint inhibitor therapies that target the proteins CTLA-4 (studied by Dr. Allison) and PD-1 (studied by Dr. Honjo). MSK’s Dr. Michael Postow explains in the article that next steps in immunotherapy research include determining who the therapies will help and why they don’t help the majority of patients.

The second Vox piece looks at the economics of checkpoint inhibitor therapy. While immunotherapies save lives, they also can cost more than $100,000 per patient. The article includes this chart from MSK’s Dr. Peter Bach:

For more of Dr. Bach’s economic comparisons, visit the website of MSK’s Center for Health Policy & Outcomes.