The Hispanic/Latino population is the second largest racial and ethnic group in the United States, accounting for 20% of the total population (68 million), plus approximately 3 million Hispanic Americans residing in Puerto Rico. Herein, the American Cancer Society reports cancer occurrence, risk factors, and screening for US Hispanic people using federally funded, high-quality, population-based cancer registry data and national vital statistics and survey data. In 2026, an estimated 229,900 Hispanic people will be diagnosed with cancer, and 54,200 will die from the disease in the continental United States and Hawaii. Cancer incidence during 1998-2022 rose in Hispanic women (from 345 to 385 per 100,000) and fell in Hispanic men (from 471 to 389 per 100,000), narrowing the male-to-female incidence rate ratio from a peak of 1.40 (95% CI, 1.38-1.42) in 2002 to 1.01 (95% CI, 1.00-1.02; p = .02) in 2022. This pattern is partly driven by declining incidence of lung and prostate cancers among men and increasing incidence of breast and uterine corpus cancers among women. Although temporal trends mirror the general population, the Hispanic cancer distribution is distinct, consistent with relatively lower prevalence of smoking, alcohol drinking, and screening and higher prevalence of obesity and cancer-causing infections. Compared with White people, Hispanic people have one half the incidence of lung and urinary bladder cancers and 24% lower breast cancer but double the rate of liver, stomach, and gallbladder cancers, 61%-65% higher acute lymphocytic leukemia, and 36% higher cervical cancer. The cancer burden in Puerto Rico is distinct, with lower rates of lung cancer but higher rates of cervical, prostate, and colorectal cancers compared with other US Hispanic populations. Residents in Puerto Rico also experience lasting health care system challenges from extreme weather events. Thus, prevention efforts should target the unique cancer profile of the Hispanic population, including infection prevention and control, healthy eating, physical activity, and routine screening, especially for cervical and colorectal cancer that are 11 percentage points lower than White people.

Gastric cancer remains a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, with nearly 1 million new cases diagnosed annually. Despite innovations in diagnosis, most patients still present at advanced stages, contributing to a poor prognosis. For early gastric cancer, endoscopic resection or minimally invasive surgery has become standard, offering comparable oncologic outcomes with faster recovery compared with open surgery. In locally advanced disease, resection of the primary lesion and D2 lymphadenectomy, defined as dissection of lymph nodes along two levels of blood vessels supplying the stomach, remains the cornerstone of curative surgery, whereas perioperative chemotherapy, particularly oxaliplatin-based regimens, has demonstrated improved survival benefits compared with surgery alone. The integration of immunotherapy into perioperative therapy for locally advanced disease and first-line palliative therapy for metastatic disease represents a paradigm shift, with programmed death 1/programmed death-ligand 1 inhibitors combined with chemotherapy significantly improving pathologic complete response rates and overall survival, especially in programmed death ligand 1-positive and microsatellite instability-high tumors. Targeted agents include claudin 18.2 antibody, with zolbetuximab establishing a new first-line standard for claudin 18.2-positive disease, and antibody-drug conjugates, such as trastuzumab deruxtecan for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive disease, both of which have revolutionized treatment paradigms. Emerging strategies include dual immune checkpoint inhibition, bispecific antibodies, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, and fibroblast growth factor receptor 2b-targeting agents. Ultimately, the field is moving toward personalized, biomarker-driven approaches within multidisciplinary frameworks, although overcoming acquired resistance and addressing global disparities in therapeutic access remain important challenges.

The clinical landscape of early stage nonsmall cell lung cancer is at transformative crossroads. Driven by the widespread adoption of low-dose computed tomography screening, the frequent detection of ground-glass opacities, and a rising incidence among never-smokers, the diagnostic center of gravity has shifted toward earlier, potentially curable disease. This shift has been accompanied by equally important therapeutic advances, including parenchyma-sparing surgical techniques, minimally invasive platforms enhanced by digital navigation, and the transformative integration of perioperative immunotherapy and targeted agents. Concurrently, noninvasive monitoring approaches, such as liquid biopsy, have emerged as powerful tools to guide precision management. Despite this progress, substantial barriers to achieving a universal cure persist. Clinicians continue to face uncertainty in the management of ground-glass opacities, the anatomy-based TNM staging system fails to capture the biologic heterogeneity of early tumors, and global disparities in access to innovation remain unresolved. To address these challenges, the authors propose a shift toward a risk-adaptive management paradigm that harnesses artificial intelligence-driven analytics and multi-omics profiling to tailor treatment intensity according to each patient's biologic risk. Such an approach would enable appropriate escalation for high-risk individuals while permitting safe de-escalation for those at low risk. This holistic, lifespan-oriented strategy must be embraced to deliver equitable and durable cures for patients with early stage nonsmall cell lung cancer.

The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging for all cancer sites has been updated periodically as a published manual for many years. The last update of the manual version, the eighth edition AJCC Cancer Staging Manual, went into use on January 1, 2018. The AJCC has since restructured and updated its processes for curating, analyzing, and publishing updates to the TNM staging system. All AJCC staging-related data are now housed on its new application programming interface. Consequently, the subsequent AJCC TNM staging updates are now published electronically as protocols and are released by disease sites. The protocol for carcinoma of the vulva, AJCC version 9, is now published. The new TNM vulvar cancer staging was validated using the American College of Surgeons' National Cancer Data Base. This article highlights the changes to the new AJCC TNM staging protocol for carcinoma of the vulva; these changes align with the 2021 International Federation for Gynecology and Obstetrics staging. The most important of the changes are: (1) a new method for depth of invasion measurement, (2) the addition of a new T subcategory-T4, (3) redefined N subcategories, and (4) an increased number of M subcategories with the addition of clinical to all M subcategories.

This article provides updated global cancer statistics for the year 2024 based on the GLOBOCAN estimates of the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The authors describe national cancer incidence and mortality by world region and the Human Development Index and predict the burden in 2050 based on demographic trends. In 2024, an estimated 20.6 million new cancer cases (19.5 million excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer) and 9.8 million deaths (9.7 million excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer) occurred worldwide, equivalent to one in five people developing cancer during their lifetime and one in nine men and one in 13 women dying from the disease. Lung cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer, responsible for almost 2.6 million new cases (12.8%), followed by female breast (11.8%), colorectal (9.9%), prostate (7.5%), and stomach (4.7%) cancer. Lung cancer is also the leading cause of cancer death, with an estimated 1.9 million deaths (19.1%), followed by colorectal (9.4%), liver (7.5%), female breast (7.1%), and stomach (6.6%) cancer. Incidence rates vary four- to five-fold across regions, with the highest rates found in Australia/New Zealand (men, 477 per 100,000; women, 396 per 100,000), whereas mortality rates differ two-fold, with elevated rates in Eastern Europe for men (158 per 100,000) and Melanesia for women (108 per 100,000). The incidence burden is predicted to reach 34.4 million by 2050, up 67% from 2024, with the largest proportional increases in lower Human Development Index countries. Although global variation in cancer profiles demands a nuanced approach to cancer control at national and regional levels, primary prevention must be at the forefront, including intensified efforts to reduce tobacco use, prevent infections, lower alcohol consumption and excess body weight, and increase physical activity.

Cancer advances are not distributed equitably among many segments of the population. Specifically, individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) face compounded disparities in cancer detection, treatment, and survival. SMI, characterized by conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe major depression, is associated with significant functional impairment and a two-to-three-decade reduction in life expectancy. Patients with SMI encounter unique challenges when navigating cancer care, including fragmented care pathways, less access to cancer therapeutics, limited psychosocial support, stigma, heightened vulnerability to diagnostic overshadowing where symptoms are attributed to their psychiatric rather than a medical or oncologic condition, and underrepresentation in therapeutic clinical trials. This review explores the intersection of SMI and cancer care starting with the conceptual background and its importance related to cancer outcomes and the delivery of ethical care to highlight unmet needs and a multitude of barriers. The paper proposes practical recommendations to improve cancer care for individuals with SMI who develop cancer including adopting the collaborative care model, enhancing psychosocial and psychiatric integration in oncology settings, and addressing biases inherent in clinician training. Interventions targeting individual, interpersonal, health system, and policy levels are essential to comprehensively mitigating disparities and developing durable cancer delivery strategies. Equitable cancer care for patients with SMI is both a moral imperative and a cornerstone of advancing social justice in oncology. Thus, there is a critical need to prioritize the translation of research advances, to close the gap in cancer outcomes and mortality, and to improve patient outcomes and wellbeing.

Extranodal natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTCL) is one of the most aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphomas characterized by NK-cell or T-cell origins, a geographic prevalence in Asian and South American populations, and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. ENKTCL used to be a fatal disease upon treatment with anthracycline-containing chemotherapies. However, the treatment paradigms for ENKTCL have evolved; consequently, patients have achieved significantly improved clinical outcomes. Today, combined-modality therapies co-targeting genomic instability and metabolic vulnerability comprise the standard of care for early stage ENKTCL, whereas therapies that include targeting of immune and metabolic dysregulation are the backbone of treatment for advanced-stage ENKTCL. New agents targeting surface antigens, oncogenic signaling pathways, and EBV are under investigation and have demonstrated promising responses. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is beneficial when used in therapy-responsive, high-risk patients and ENKTCL-associated hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, but it is not recommended for early stage ENKTCL. Although nearly 80% of patients with newly diagnosed ENKTCL achieve long-term survival, treatment of relapsed/refractory ENKTCL is critical. Because it is now understood that EBV infection has a major role in disease progression, a deeper understanding of EBV-associated oncogenesis and alterations in the tumor microenvironment foster the development of novel therapeutic strategies, such as cellular therapies and vaccines targeting EBV. Future multicenter collaborations worldwide will be needed to further optimize mechanism-based treatment in the era of precision medicine, paving a curative pathway for this once fatal disease.