Pontiff is recovering from a lobectomy, which is standard treatment for lung cancer caught early and can be curative

On Tuesday, surgeons in Rome removed the lower part of Pope Leo’s right lung, after a routine health check found a small growth that tests have since confirmed as lung cancer. The operation, called a lobectomy, is the standard treatment for lung cancer caught early, and for many patients it is the only treatment they will ever need. So what exactly did his doctors do, and what happens next?

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© Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

© Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

© Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

Families in Vaca Muerta, the centre of Patagonia’s shale operation, report cancers, miscarriages and pollution

In Allen, a small town in Argentine Patagonia, many people living on the same street ended up falling ill. For some, it was severe migraines, nausea or skin irritation. For others, cancers, congenital abnormalities, miscarriages or stillbirth seemed to affect foetuses or children. People say it all started 13 years ago – when a well was drilled near their homes to extract gas and oil.

Calle Ciega 10 [Dead-end Street 10] lies on the eastern edge of Vaca Muerta, a vital area for Argentina’s economy, home to the world’s second-largest reserve of shale gas and fourth-largest reserve of shale oil. The region has more than 2,600 active wells, including one on this small street where about 20 families live, most of them seasonal workers on fruit farms.

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© Photograph: Erica Canepa/The Guardian

© Photograph: Erica Canepa/The Guardian

© Photograph: Erica Canepa/The Guardian

Lung cancer is still a leading cause of cancer death, but that rate is half what it was in the 1990s, partly because newly developed treatments are working.

© Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

Ultra-processed foods are displacing traditional diets, warns Prof Kent Buse. Plus letters from Hugo Harper, Dr Pawan Randev and Patricia Hampton

Your editorial on cancers in under-50s (8 October) rightly names food among the culprits. But the confrontation it calls for should be aimed less at obesity than at what produces it. Obesity is the intermediary; the exposure is a food system engineered for profit.

The Lancet’s series on ultra-processed foods showed these products displacing traditional diets worldwide and driving chronic disease, and documented more than 200 interconnected lobby groups through which the industry organises its influence to block regulation.

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© Photograph: Alamy/PA

© Photograph: Alamy/PA

© Photograph: Alamy/PA

In a sense, Vollmann is Sacramento. "He's weird, he's quirky, he's got his own kind of thing going," Lytle said. "He doesn't really care what anybody else thinks about him. He's just living his life the way he wants to live it."

New details have emerged about an initiative that starts in December to fast-track the vaccines, similar to the successful push for the Covid-19 vaccine.

© Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg

Some change in our lifestyles and environments over a generation has caused this increased risk. What, exactly, is a mystery

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

In the field of global health, we often talk about each generation living longer and healthier lives than their parents. We’ve seen this in the gains in life expectancy, the sharp decrease in child mortality and in the near elimination of many vaccine-preventable diseases. But since the turn of the century this progress has stalled, and in some cases several health metrics have gone backwards.

Take cancer, which was long thought to be a disease linked to old age. While most cancers do indeed still occur in elderly people, a new report highlights that a number of cancers are increasing in people who are under 50, often referred to as “early onset cancer”. The report, undertaken by the World Cancer Research Fund, looked at data from 12 different cancer types in England, the US and the Netherlands over the past 20 years. What they found isn’t pretty.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

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© Photograph: JohnnyGreig/Getty Images

© Photograph: JohnnyGreig/Getty Images

© Photograph: JohnnyGreig/Getty Images

More research into the troubling rise in early onset cancers is needed. But we already know that food is among the culprits

The latest findings about the rise in cancers in people under 50, from the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), are extremely concerning. While a cancer diagnosis is bad news at any time, it is a particular blow for those in younger age groups where most people are in good health. Overlapping trends observed in England, the Netherlands and the US include a troubling rise in the incidence of colorectal (or bowel) cancer. Other diseases that have increased in England include uterine and kidney cancers.

These diseases are still rare in young people: 10 times more adults in their 50s, 60s and 70s are diagnosed than those in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Earlier detection is thought to be one factor behind the rise in younger patients. Diagnosing more cancers sooner is an explicit policy goal in England, where late diagnosis and lower uptake of screening are two reasons for mortality rates that are higher than elsewhere in Europe.

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© Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

© Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

© Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

With cancer cases rising fastest in poorer countries, Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu, president-elect of the Union for International Cancer Control, says Africa needs investment in research, diagnosis and prevention

When Dr Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu last saw Gloria in Abuja, the young breast cancer patient was so ill that she was in hospital. The cancer had spread to her bones and lungs, and she was struggling with complications from the disease.

Then, at a global conference on cancer thousands of miles away in Hong Kong last month, Bagudu saw her again. Gloria was walking with a stick because of the cancer in her hips, but she was attending sessions, speaking about her experience and advocating for other patients.

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© Photograph: UICC

© Photograph: UICC

© Photograph: UICC

Operation on 19-year-old who had no sperm after chemotherapy offers hope of preserving children’s fertility after cancer treatment

Surgeons have performed the first testicular tissue transplant on a teenager in the UK, offering hope that boys left infertile by chemotherapy could one day have biological children.

The 19-year-old had his tissue removed and frozen three years ago before undergoing treatment for a serious blood disorder. He said he was “incredibly grateful” to the medical team behind the pioneering procedure, which represents a potential breakthrough for male fertility preservation.

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© Illustration: Christoph Burgstedt/Getty Images

© Illustration: Christoph Burgstedt/Getty Images

© Illustration: Christoph Burgstedt/Getty Images

Experts looking at UK, US and Dutch data found ‘significant increases’ in early onset cases of seven cancers, prompting warnings about lifestyle choices

Cases of seven types of cancer have risen sharply among younger people in England, major new research has found, prompting warnings that lifestyle choices are costing thousands of lives each year.

The number of people under 50 diagnosed with prostate cancer in England has quadrupled since 2001, while early onset bowel, kidney and uterine cancer diagnoses more than doubled.

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© Photograph: baranozdemir/Getty Images

© Photograph: baranozdemir/Getty Images

© Photograph: baranozdemir/Getty Images

Found in 70 percent of cancers, the gene is seen as a grand orchestrator, but has been surprisingly difficult to stop.

Researchers are asking why patients, like former Senator Ben Sasse, inevitably develop resistance to the drug daraxonrasib.

© T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Targeted gene therapies are highly effective at stopping cancers, but the very abundance of the treatments, plus cost and sluggish change, are hindering access.

© Emily Elconin for The New York Times

The gene is found predominantly in Southern Appalachia and may be one of the most powerful cancer-risk mutations ever found.

© Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

He developed a program that became a model for hospitals around the world, making it easier for poor Black patients to navigate an onerous bureaucratic system.

© Frances Roberts for The New York Times

The preliminary research was conducted in mice, but scientists were optimistic the results would apply to humans. Clinical trials begin this month.

© Mason Trinca for The New York Times