Nancy Lee

@DavidSherMD Great summary as always 🙏🏾… Can we just de-escalate (dose, volume, fractions) and get rid of most of these problems?! 🙃

TORPEdO was an incredible effort by the investigators and patients, and the paper analyzes the results extraordinarily well. Given the normalization of outcomes over a very short period of time following treatment, plus the difference in weight loss without any sacrifice in a very low risk of g-tube dependence over time, I agree with the paper’s conclusion: "In health-care settings where IMPT is not used routinely for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, IMRT remains the standard-of-care.” Especially since IMRT in 2026 is markedly better than the delivered treatments in the trial, it is hard to see how IMRT shouldn’t always be the standard-of-care. The key is not stopping there. It is critical to remember that in both arms, about 50% or more of patients reported altered appearance, taste, swallowing and saliva: we need to do better! And additional improvement clearly will require something more meaningful than protons or photons. Total dose, elective dose, and elective volumes all need to be personalized and optimized. Let's go!

👋👋👋 Congrats to the investigators for the long awaited publication of this well-executed trial. Proton beam therapy for oropharyngeal cancer (TORPEdO): a phase 3, ran... sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @seanmmcbride @DavidSherMD @KaramLab

Come for the critically important data on protons for oropharyngeal cancer, stay for the beautifully written paper. TORPEdO is out, and it is fascinating and instructive. I will warn you upfront that this is a long thread, but there is a lot here to discuss! thelancet.com/journals/lance…

Researchers have published the recipe for an artificial-intelligence model that reviews the scientific literature better than some major LLMs are able to, and gets the citations correct as often as human experts do go.nature.com/4r3fiEC

New @CellCellPress The hallmarks of cancer, refined from the original concepts 25 years ago, as an outgrowth of our expanding knowledge base cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

🙏 Thank you @ASCOPost for featuring our @Annals_Oncology paper "Machine learning reveals country-specific drivers of global cancer outcomes" led by @MilitSPatel 🔗 ascopost.com/news/january-2… @MSK_RadOnc @PCFnews

RNA-binding proteins and ribonucleoproteins as determinants of immunity dlvr.it/TQMKKq

Our review is highlighted by the cover of the current issue of @TrendsImmuno -The lingering shadow of epidemics: post-acute sequelae across history by Christine Miller and @jannamoen. Please read (open access)👇🏼 cell.com/trends/immunol…

RNA modification systems as therapeutic targets nature.com/articles/s4157… rdcu.be/eZdRG This Review in the January issue discusses the disease associations of proteins that regulate RNA modifications and advances in the development of therapeutic inhibitors

Decoding the spatial dynamics of tumor and immune cell interactions in solid cancers dlvr.it/TQN5M3

📜 In @Annals_Oncology led by @MilitSPatel, we present, "Machine learning reveals country-specific drivers of global cancer outcomes" 🌍🌎🌏 @MSKCancerCenter @TataMemorial @AKUHNairobi @UZH_en @UTSW_RadOnc @umiamimedicine @harvardmed @MedicalCollege 🔗 sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

📜 In @JAMANetworkOpen led by Asher Shin, we examine race/ethnicity differences in #nasopharynx #cancer subtypes in the #US 👉 Although #nonkeratinizing #NPC dominates, the burden of #keratinizing #NPC is often overlooked & should be further studied 🔗 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41525077/

New research from MSK shows that bacteria inside tumors may limit the effectiveness of #immunotherapy. Targeting those bacteria could help more patients benefit. Learn more: bit.ly/4aJa6jT

@DavidSherMD I'm deeply skeptical that any of the microbes were really in the tumors, with the exception of HPV. The sequencing techniques (RNA-seq and exome) shouldn't have captured bacteria at all, so I suspect it's just contamination. Sorry to see Nature publishing this stuff

@DavidSherMD modifying this comment: these were throat-related tumors, so it's quite plausible that oral microbes were found on the tumors. A more difficult question is whether they were just transitory or were actually growing in/on the tumors

Two papers in @NatureCancer highlighting the role of intratumoral bacteria & associated immune architecture (e.g., neutrophil influx) in mediating resistance to immunotherapy in head & neck cancer. nature.com/articles/s4301… nature.com/articles/s4301… @GeneCollector @xrtGenomics

Both of these papers are a must-read. Well-written (so even non-scientists like myself can follow reasonably well), clear scientific method, and remarkable results. Bottom-line: high tumor bacterial burden (TBB) is strongly related to response to immune checkpoint blockade, with similar/complementary results in different trials and datasets. Higher TBB seems to drive a neutrophil/myeloid-heavy microenvironment that is immunosuppressive. The field has long posited that elective nodal irradiation and RT in general have been the key immune suppressors in non-metastatic trials, but these data are very compelling that the tumor microbiome is the (or one of the) critical drivers of response (as an example, check out the survival curves below). Amazing work. Bravo! (1/2)

@xrtGenomics @NatureCancer @nataliesilvermd @GeneCollector Congratulations Nadeem fantastic work!!

🥳🎆 Kicking of 2026 with our work showing intra-tumoral bacteria 🦠 affect outcomes of Radiotherapy + anti-PD-L1 now out in @NatureCancer with sister paper by @nataliesilvermd! Even when trials "fail" – we can learn from them! nature.com/articles/s4301…. -- w/ @GeneCollector, @imrtlee, @TylerAlban1, @DrHaddadRobert, the Pfizer team and more! (1/N)