Health News

'I've requested a full hysterectomy'

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:40:19 +0000

Emma Barnett shares her life-long struggle with endometriosis – a disease affecting one in ten women of reproductive age, which causes excruciating, often debilitating, pain.

Cancer is now a story of the good, the bad and the ugly – but also hope | Devi Sridhar

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:19:30 +0000

It’s natural to focus on breakthroughs, but there are many challenges in Britain and around the world. There is no magic bullet, but there’s room for optimism

Cancer causes nearly one in six deaths worldwide every year, some 10 million all told. That is a stunning number, but it also masks the reality that some cancers are more deadly than others. We have become remarkably good at detecting and treating melanoma and prostate cancer, for example, and today five-year survival rates for those cancers are well over 90% in most rich countries. Others, such as pancreatic cancer, are more difficult. In the UK, just over one in 20 people with pancreatic cancer are still alive five years after diagnosis.

That is why a new drug for pancreatic cancer, called daraxonrasib and announced at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (Asco) annual meeting in Chicago at the weekend, has been met with such jubilation. The drug – taken as a pill once a day – doubled the survival time of those enrolled in a 500-person trial, with fewer side effects compared to traditional chemotherapy. The drug works by shutting down a protein, Kras, that causes cancer cells to grow and divide. One longtime cancer researcher reported that she cried reading the results. With so few effective treatments for this cancer available, the drug is likely to be a real game-changer.

Health News

'I've requested a full hysterectomy'

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Abortion, regret and the right to decide | Letters

Alan Milburn is right, a young generation has been betrayed. Forget Tony Blair: we must attend to this | Polly Toynbee

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