“ This will help us provide more personalized care , new screening , prevention , and treatment approaches to people in our state .”
microbiome ’ s link to the immune system , such organisms could stimulate the creation of certain substances that can promote cancer from within the body itself . Researchers are also weighing the influence of microplastics or nanoplastics , which recent studies have shown can disrupt everything from the immune system to fetal development .
“ I think among younger people in the US , there is a culture that uses a lot of antibiotics , and that has come up in research as well ,” El-Deiry says . “ We ’ ve altered our gut microbiomes , and perhaps interplay between the bugs and the immune system , obesity , and inflammation contribute to certain early-onset cancer rates . But I think that ’ s a work in progress .”
INCLUSIVE CARE Researchers also must address racial disparities in cancer incidence . According to the American Cancer Society , mortality rates are “ two-fold higher for prostate , stomach , and uterine corpus cancers in Black people and for liver , stomach , and kidney cancers in Native American people .”
Don Dizon , MD , the head of community outreach and engagement at the Legorreta Cancer Center , says that health care needs to move away from strictly race-based assessments for cancer risks and screening .
“ I think we need to move toward an ancestral understanding of the risks for cancer , especially as we , as a society , become multiracial and multiethnic ,” says Dizon , a professor of medicine and of surgery at Brown . “ We need to understand what role ancestry plays in cancer risks with better methods of screening .”
Public health officials , researchers , and clinicians must work together to include underrepresented populations in clinical trials , Dizon says . And , he adds , there needs to be greater diversity in person-centered care , both in terms of clinical approaches and patient representation , to bring down cancer incidence rates .
“ We need to understand that we ’ re still learning that no one person has the answers , and we should never settle for what we know now ,” he says .
In Rhode Island , the public health-oriented approach to care is reflected in Brown ’ s plan to create a statewide cancer center , El-Deiry says . The University established its cancer center in 2020 ; it has more than tripled funding from the National Cancer Institute over the last four years . This is helping researchers leverage emerging technologies that can perform highly technical tasks like pulling tumor cells from blood samples , creating advanced visualization and modeling tools , and building artificial intelligence systems that can recognize patterns while contributing to both clinical trials and outcomes .
“ This will help us provide more personalized care , new screening , prevention , and treatment approaches to people in our state ,” El-Deiry says .
Ultimately , reducing cancer rates will require a multipronged approach to gain a better understanding of the diseases — so they can be prevented and treated , if not necessarily cured .
“ We ’ re not necessarily talking about curing cancer at this point . Nothing would make me happier , certainly , but the best way to deal with the cancer burden is to prevent it and remove it when it is 100 percent curable ,” El-Deiry says . “ Realistically , I think we can do a lot just by adopting preventative measures , avoiding behaviors that increase exposure risks , and promote vaccinations against certain virally caused cancers . There are opportunities to develop clinical trials and vaccines to keep cancer at bay , and those processes are very powerful if we can take advantage of them .” HD @ B
22 HEALTH DISCOVERIES @ BROWN l WINTER 2025