The Good News About Cancer

A lot of cancers don’t get diagnosed until the disease is somewhat advanced. Dr. Bea Bakshi founded her company, C the Signs, to change that. They use artificial intelligence to comb through medical records and identify when a patient should be screened for cancer – and it catches disease far earlier than a human doctor could. She tells Chuck about their success integrating into the National Health System in the UK, and their plans to launch in the United States.

A new blood test called Cancerguard is pushing the boundaries of cancer early detection. The test is widely available, and has the ability to screen for more than 50 cancer types. In this episode, Chuck talks with Dr. Tom Beer of Exact Sciences, the company behind the Cancerguard test.

The earlier a cancer is detected, the more possibilities there are for effective treatment. In this episode, Chuck and Alicia talk with Dr. Nickolas Papadopoulos about his research into how indications of cancer can show up in the blood, long before symptoms arise.

We all know that exercise is good for us, but historically there hasn’t been much data on how much exercise – or what kind of exercise – might have benefits for cancer patients. In this episode, Chuck and Alicia talk with Kerry Courneya of the University of Alberta about his study that looked into the question of exercise for patients with colorectal cancer. The results, which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that exercise could be even better than we think.

Colorectal cancer rates are on the rise, particularly among young people. And the standard of care treatments can have lifelong impacts on a patient's quality of life – but new immunotherapies could change that. Dr. Andrea Cercek joins Chuck and Alicia to talk about the immunotherapy drug Dostarlimab, which is ushering in a new era of cancer treatment.