Irish Travellers are a distinct minority ethnic group with a long tradition of nomadism on the island of Ireland. Travellers have a significantly reduced life expectancy and experience greater health inequalities. Limited evidence describes how cancer awareness and engagement with prevention, screening and early diagnosis are shaped by structural and service contexts.

This qualitative study was undertaken as part of a larger multi-method study co-developed with the Health Service Executive, National Cancer Control Programme, National Social Inclusion Office, and Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre- a human rights advocacy and Irish Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). The study aimed to understand cancer awareness and attitudes among Irish Travellers, identify barriers and enablers to cancer risk reduction behaviours and early diagnosis of cancer. In-person interviews were completed with 22 adult Irish Travellers (18 individual interviews and two group interviews with two participants each) and were transcribed verbatim and analysed using collaborative reflexive thematic analysis.

Four themes described the interactions between everyday structural disadvantage, culture, privacy, fear and family roles; systems-level barriers; and Traveller-led and service-level enablers. Awareness did not always translate into an opportunity to act. Racism and discrimination, literacy barriers, living conditions, limited service choice, inaccessible communication and inflexible appointment systems constrained engagement. Pride in Traveller identity, trusted relationships, Traveller Community Health Workers, accessible information and culturally safe services supported engagement.

Improving cancer awareness requires more than individual behaviour change. Equitable engagement with prevention, screening and early diagnosis depends on anti-racist, accessible and flexible mainstream services developed in partnership with Travellers and their organisations. Traveller Community Health Workers are a major strength, and their expertise should be harnessed within health systems.

The study was co-developed with Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, who are represented as co-authors on the paper and were members of the study working group. They took part in all aspects of the study, including providing anti-discrimination training, recruitment, interpretation of findings, and providing lived-experience expertise throughout the drafting of the paper.

Hand dexterity is critical for everyday function and involves the coordinated integration of multiple brain networks. However, we know very little about how changes in connectivity across networks facilitate recovery after removal of a pathological brain lesion, like a tumor.

Resting-state functional connectivity and 9-hole peg test (9HPT) times were collected before and after surgical resection in 16 patients with brain tumors. All patients had contrast-enhancing brain lesions (12 glioblastomas, 2 metastases, and 2 radionecrosis). Patients were retrospectively grouped into better or worse recovery based on change in 9HPT scores. Connectivity was assessed between the ipsilesional dorsomedial somatomotor network A (SMN A) with 39 other networks in the brain using partial correlations.

Patients with worse recovery of hand function had a decrease in somatomotor connectivity to the rest of the brain (p  < 0.05) and a decrease in interhemispheric connectivity to the contralesional SMN A (p  < 0.05). Conversely, patients with better recovery had higher ipsilesional SMN A to ventrolateral SMN B connectivity preresection (p  < 0.05) and higher ipsilesional SMN A-to-contralesional dorsal attention network B (DAN B) connectivity postresection (p  < 0.05).

Recovery of hand dexterity from presentation to postoperative follow-up in patients with brain tumors most strongly correlated with ipsilesional SMN A connectivity to the contralesional SMN A, contralesional DAN B, and ipsilesional SMN B. This finding suggests promising neuromodulation targets for postoperative therapies aiming to improve hand dexterity.

Research is essential for improving outcomes in paediatric oncology, yet decisions about research participation often occur during emotionally vulnerable periods for families. Although children's assent is ethically required, it is not always meaningfully implemented in practice. Understanding how children, siblings and parents experience the child's involvement in the assent process, including their attitudes towards research, is crucial for promoting ethically sound research and supporting genuine child participation. The aim of this study was to describe how children with cancer, siblings and parents experience the child's assent process during research recruitment in paediatric oncology, with particular attention to its motivational and relational dimensions.

A descriptive qualitative study design. Interviews were undertaken with children with cancer (n = 11), siblings (n = 17) and parents (n = 9) regarding their experiences of recruitment to various types of research in Sweden. Data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Two main themes were identified: a moral and emotional commitment to research, and relational assent-trust, loyalty and parental mediation. Children, siblings and parents described research participation as meaningful and morally significant in a vulnerable situation. Children's involvement in assent ranged from active participation to limited influence, with some decisions made primarily by parents. Decisions about research participation were shaped by relational dynamics, in which trust, loyalty, and emotional vulnerability and parental mediation played central roles.

Families are strongly motivated to contribute to research in paediatric oncology. However, sustaining trust and safeguarding research integrity require consistent and meaningful implementation of children's assent. Child-centred, flexible, and context-sensitive assent processes are key, alongside ethical awareness of how relational dynamics shape children's autonomy. Recognising parents as key partners is essential for upholding both ethical standards and children's rights in paediatric research.

When a parent is diagnosed with cancer, it can place a significant burden on the entire family. The aim of this study is therefore to analyse the psychological distress experienced over time among cancer patients or their partners who are raising minor children and who utilize a family-oriented counselling service (COSIP), and to compare these data with those of a group receiving routine psycho-oncological care (PO).

We conducted a secondary, longitudinal observational study based on routine care data from users of an outpatient psycho-oncological clinic. The database comprised assessments at baseline and at 6- and 12-month follow-ups, including measures of distress, anxiety and depression for COSIP and PO users. For COSIP users additional data on health-related quality of life (HRQoL), parental concerns, and family functioning was included. We conducted descriptive analyses and examined baseline group differences using t-tests and Pearson's chi-square tests. Longitudinal trajectories were analysed using linear mixed-effects models.

Data from n = 34 parents who had registered themselves and their families for a COSIP counselling session between 2020 and 2022 were included in the analyses. Among the COSIP users, the time since the initial diagnosis was shorter on average (p = .017) and the parents were separated less frequently (p = .015) than in the group of PO users (n = 34). At baseline, PO and COSIP users exhibited elevated levels of psychological burden, with over 80% of parents reporting clinically significant distress, 54% presenting with moderate to severe anxiety symptoms, and 50% showing elevated levels of depressive symptoms. In the adjusted model, a significant main effect of time, for distress F(2, 107.24) = 14.72, p < .001, depression F(2, 69.61) = 12.27, p < .001 and anxiety F(2, 84.11) = 17.02, p < .001, but no group difference were found. We identified a significant effect of time for parental concerns F(2, 17.24) = 7.41, p = .006, parental HRQoL F(2, 31.52) = 4.34, p = .022 and children's HRQoL F(2, 28.11) = 5.21, p = .012 among COSIP users.

Parents who are confronted with a cancer diagnosis show high levels of psychological distress. Over time, a significant decrease in psychological distress among both groups and family-related outcomes in COSIP users was identified. Interestingly, no significant differences were observed between the groups, suggesting that the type of psycho-oncological support (individual or family-centred) may not differentially affect parental burden.

Microfluidics has emerged as a powerful technology for precisely controlling mechanical and chemical environments across a wide range of biological systems, from single cells to complex co-cultures. In microbiology, the microscale dimensions of bacteria pose experimental challenges that microfluidic systems have effectively addressed, offering compatibility with live imaging and enabling quantitative investigations of bacterial behaviors and host-bacteria interactions. Historical microfluidic designs are now routinely used to quantify bacterial growth and lineage with unprecedented temporal-spatial resolution and precise control of external conditions. In parallel, organ-on-chip technologies are increasingly applied in microbiology to study host-bacteria interactions within physiologically relevant and well-controlled microenvironments. Recently, cancer tissues have been recognized as unexpected hosts for bacteria, with mounting impactful evidence showing that intratumoral microbes can influence cancer progression and response to therapy. Despite growing interest, the application of microfluidics to cancer-bacteria interactions remains limited. Addressing this gap requires the development of appropriate methodological tools that replicate the relevant tumor microenvironment features and allow the quantification of both cellular responses and bacterial colonization dynamics upon the bacterial-host interaction. In this review, we first outline the foundational applications of microfluidics in microbiology from single-cell to collective behavior studies. We then describe how organ-on-chip technology enables the fine-tuned formation of organ-specific conditions, which are critical for modeling the complex tumor microenvironment. We further examine recent findings on intratumoral bacteria across cancer types and discuss how microfluidics, especially tumor-on-chip approaches, can advance this emerging field, from mechanistic insights to therapeutic development.

The aim of this study was to determine the required concentration of magnetic nanoparticles to achieve the therapeutic temperature in prostate cancer treatment during magnetic hyperthermia, taking into account the influence of the geometry of the heated region. In this context, four types of magnetic nanoparticles were considered in the calculations: maghemite, magnetite, cobalt ferrite, and barium ferrite.

An air coil generating an alternating magnetic field was designed to obtain a uniform magnetic field distribution in the prostate region. The magnetic field distribution was used to calculate the volumetric power density generated by the magnetic nanoparticles. Thermal simulations were conducted for a naturalistic prostate tumour and three geometric primitives (cylinder, sphere, and cube) placed in the same anatomical location for comparison purposes. To evaluate the concentration of various types of magnetic nanoparticles, the linear response theory was used.

The concentrations of magnetic nanoparticles for the tumour, cylinder, sphere, and cube required to achieve the therapeutic temperature were determined. The results revealed noticeable differences between the tumour model and simplified geometries in terms of both required nanoparticle concentration and heating efficiency.

The obtained results indicate that the concentration of magnetic nanoparticles required to achieve therapeutic temperatures strongly depends on the geometry of the heated region, type of magnetic nanoparticles, and their concentration. Furthermore, the use of simplified geometrical models may lead to significant inaccuracies in predicting heat generation, suggesting that realistic tumour geometry should be considered in magnetic hyperthermia studies. These findings highlight the necessity of individualized treatment planning.

BRAF is a cytoplasmic serine-threonine protein kinase that plays a critical role in the MAPK signaling pathway. BRAF is the only member of the RAF family activated by mutation in human cancers. Many classes of B-Raf small molecule inhibitors have been identified. In this review, we will highlight typical BRAF inhibitors developed during these decades and provide a reference for the exploration of more potential BRAF inhibitors in the future.

Metastases in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) typically arise from large primary tumors. However, a subset of patients with small renal masses (SRMs; ≤4 cm) can develop metastatic disease. Identifying these tumors is clinically important, as many SRMs are managed with active surveillance, and their study may provide insight into the early acquisition of metastatic competence. It remains unclear whether these tumors acquire distinct metastatic programs or instead show premature activation of the same aggressive programs typically associated with larger tumors. Here, we performed integrated morphological and molecular profiling of a multiinstitutional cohort of metastatic SRMs, including whole-exome sequencing and RNA-Seq, using nonmetastatic primary tumors as controls. Among metastatic, non-clear cell SRMs, we identified NF2-altered tumors, ELOC-mutated RCC, and an mTOR-driven eosinophilic vacuolated tumor. Metastatic clear cell SRMs were enriched by multi-hit aggressive genotypes, including recurrent losses of chromosomes 8p, 9, and 14q, as well as co-occurring driver alterations (≥2 events), including BAP1 and mTOR pathway genes. Transcriptomic analyses revealed enrichment of the non-negative matrix factorization 3 (NMF3) subtype from the IMmotion151 trial-based taxonomy, along with metabolic rewiring and reduced cytotoxic immune effector function. Collectively, these findings identify molecular programs associated with metastatic competence in SRMs, highlight the importance of genomic studies of equivocal non-clear cell SRMs, and provide a biological framework for risk stratification in patients often considered for active surveillance.

Amyand's hernia, defined as the presence of the vermiform appendix within an inguinal hernia sac, is an uncommon surgical finding. The association with appendiceal neoplasms is exceedingly rare, particularly in the absence of inflammatory signs. We report the case of a 71-year-old male with a longstanding right inguinoscrotal hernia presenting with progressive discomfort. An open hernia repair revealed the cecum and a macroscopically non-inflamed appendix within the hernia sac. Appendectomy was performed, followed by sutureless mesh hernioplasty. Histopathological examination unexpectedly demonstrated a low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm with free resection margins. The postoperative course was uneventful, the patient remained asymptomatic at follow-up. This case suggests that even a clinically silent appendix within an Amyand's hernia may harbor occult neoplastic pathology. Appendectomy should therefore be considered in adult patients to avoid missed diagnoses with potential oncological implications.

The coexistence of ovarian carcinosarcoma, contralateral high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma, and synchronous cervical squamous cell carcinoma as multiple primary gynecologic malignancies is exceedingly rare. The tumor biology of such synchronous multiple primary malignancies (MPMNs), including pathogenesis, disease progression and prognostic impact, is not well established.

Here we report the case of a 66-year-old woman diagnosed with distinct tumors: left ovarian carcinosarcoma, right ovarian high-grade serous carcinoma, and cervical squamous cell carcinoma, and review the literature on multiple primary malignancies (MPMNs).

Following preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy with three cycles of paclitaxel plus carboplatin, the patient achieved a significant reduction in tumor volume and underwent interval cytoreductive surgery. After that, she received five cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy: two cycles of paclitaxel plus carboplatin (with bevacizumab added in the second cycle), followed by three cycles of paclitaxel plus cisplatin. Despite testing negative for HRD and BRCA mutations, she subsequently received maintenance therapy with niraparib. This treatment led to a progression-free survival of nearly one year. Although her ovarian cancer later recurred, her overall survival exceeded three years.

Multiple primary malignant neoplasms (MPMNs) are rare and there are no unified clinical guideline for this situation. This report is valuable for enhancing clinical recognition of this rare condition and contributes to optimizing and personalizing MPMNs care.