{"id":2621,"date":"2019-05-16T09:13:35","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T09:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/?p=2621"},"modified":"2020-02-18T16:00:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T16:00:36","slug":"cancer-therapy-survivorship-news-55th-iacr-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/oncology\/cancer-therapy-survivorship-news-55th-iacr-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"From cancer therapy to survivorship; news from the 55th IACR conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"background-color:#f2f2f2;color:#32373c\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-profile-box round ab-has-avatar ab-font-size-14 ab-block-profile ab-profile-columns\"><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-avatar-wrap\"><div class=\"ab-profile-image-wrap\"><figure class=\"ab-profile-image-square\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"268\" height=\"268\" class=\"ab-profile-avatar wp-image-2622\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/05\/07211413\/P4-Col-Headshot-Dr.-Maria-Principe.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/05\/07211413\/P4-Col-Headshot-Dr.-Maria-Principe.jpg 268w, https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/05\/07211413\/P4-Col-Headshot-Dr.-Maria-Principe-125x125.jpg 125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 268px) 100vw, 268px\" \/><\/figure><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-content-wrap\"><h2 class=\"ab-profile-name\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Dr Maria Prencipe, PHD.<\/h2><p class=\"ab-profile-title\" style=\"color:#32373c\">IACR Council Member 2016-2019<\/p><div class=\"ab-profile-text\"><\/div><ul class=\"ab-social-links\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\"><em>Snapshot from the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Irish Association for Cancer Research (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.iacr.ie\/\" target=\"_blank\">Irish Association for Cancer Research<\/a> annual meeting. Ireland\u2019s premier cancer research conference brings together top Irish and international cancer researchers and patients to discuss progress.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Novel fields of research<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\">Conventional <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/oncology\/personalised-medicine-now-reality\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">cancer treatments<\/a> such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy have been combined, for decades. This has been an effort to treat cancer patients. The emergence of novel fields of cancer research have in fact led to a renewed interest in combining conventional treatments with more innovative approaches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The realisation that cancer progression is not exclusively due to changes in the cancer cells, but also involves changes in the tumour surroundings as well as in the immune system. This realisation has for instance opened new avenues for combination treatments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Novel treatments were a focus point. These included: immune metabolism, epigenetic therapies and physical exercise. For example, the positive effect of physical exercise in combination with conventional therapies of cancer treatment. All stages of the cancer survivorship pathway highlighted this.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tailor treatments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Novel technologies were presented to better tailor individual patient treatments. These included digital pathology and precision medicine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 55<sup>th<\/sup> IACR conference presented several examples of these novel combinations. This is a shared platform for patients, researchers and clinicians. Survivorship and patients&#8217; quality of life after treatment had a great emphasis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Patient and public involvement at the IACR\nannual meeting<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While clinicians have regular meetings with cancer patients, cancer researchers very rarely get the opportunity to meet them. At the same time, cancer research might seem difficult to grasp for the general public, including patients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, this years&#8217; conference was opened with an award designed to encourage early-stage researchers to engage with the general public to talk about their research: <em>&#8216;The Professor Patrick Johnston IACR Award for Excellence in Cancer Research Outreach<\/em>&#8216;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Six researchers were in fact selected to present their findings. They had the hard task of presenting their research to the general public, including secondary school pupils. A judging panel and the audience then voted for the most accessible presentation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Patients and researchers working together <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The great success of this public session was in no small part due to a public engagement workshop held two weeks before the IACR meeting. During this workshop, pairs of researchers and patient mentors worked together to make science communication more accessible to the general public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This workshop was a great occasion for patients and researchers to meet and talk to each other. It was especially useful for early-stage researchers who learnt to look at the bigger picture and to value what really matters to patients.  The ultimate goal of the IACR is to improve the patient journey from diagnosis, through treatment to the lived experience of cancer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"color:#32373c;background-color:#1fcaef\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-notice ab-font-size-14 ab-block-notice\" data-id=\"121e98\"><div class=\"ab-notice-title\" style=\"color:#fff\"><p>IACR<\/p><\/div><div class=\"ab-notice-text\" style=\"border-color:#1fcaef\"><p>The Irish Association for Cancer Research (IACR) is an all-Ireland, non-profit organisation that brings together cancer researchers and healthcare professionals from all disciplines to share their expertise. <\/p><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Snapshot from the Irish Association for Cancer Research annual meeting. Ireland\u2019s premier cancer research conference brings together top Irish and international cancer researchers and patients to discuss progress. Novel fields of research Conventional cancer treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy have been combined, for decades. This has been an effort to treat cancer patients. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/oncology\/cancer-therapy-survivorship-news-55th-iacr-conference\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":2623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2856],"tags":[2859],"class_list":["post-2621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oncology","tag-innovation-in-oncology-2019"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/05\/07211412\/GettyImages-1050311916-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/05\/07211412\/GettyImages-1050311916-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Your Future Career","author_link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/author\/harveyodonnell\/"},"vicky_index_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2621"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4111,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621\/revisions\/4111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}