Key Takeaways from the Recent Cancer Breakthroughs

• Cancer survival rates are improving thanks to faster, more effective treatments.
• Several major breakthroughs could transform cancer care, including mRNA cancer vaccines, immunotherapy, and gene testing.
• Improvements in testing, for example, through blood tests could help detect cancer earlier and save more lives.

In the mid 1970s, only around half of those diagnosed with cancer lived for another five years. Today, 70 percent of cancer patients can expect to be alive five years later, and many live much longer than that.

One reason for this positive trend is the development of newer and better therapies for almost all cancers. And those drugs are coming to the clinic more quickly than ever before. Rebecca Arend, an oncologist and associate director of clinical research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s O’Neal Cancer Center, told Discover that the time between the first human trial and FDA approval used to be about 20 years.

Today, that’s down to around 10 years. Response rates in trials are improving as well. Historically, Arend said, around 10 percent of patients in phase I clinical trials realized a significant decrease in tumor burden. Some of the newer drugs being tested are getting the response rate from 10 percent up to 50 and 60 percent.

And the good news is still coming, according to the American Cancer Society. Here are five cancer treatment breakthroughs in 2025 and so far in 2026 that stand to change the face of cancer and push that 70 percent data point even higher.

1. New Drug Breakthrough For Pancreatic Cancer

It’s not often that a scientific paper presented at a conference elicits a standing ovation, but that’s what happened this spring 2026 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology when researchers presented evidence that daraxonrasib, a new drug for pancreatic cancer that targets KRAS mutations, nearly doubled the median overall survival rate in clinical trials. Arend described the announcement as “bringing chills” to everyone at the meeting.

The third leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S., pancreatic cancer is aggressive and often undetectable until it has already spread. Once diagnosed, the average pancreatic cancer patient lives less than a year. This breakthrough drug, expected to get FDA approval later in 2026, may change that.

Read More: A Blood Test Could One Day Detect Over 50 Types of Cancer — What That Means for Cancer Care

2. Immunotherapy Breakthrough for Anal Cancer

Immunotherapy treatments for cancer have been notching wins for more than a decade, as different strategies use the body's own immune defenses to treat the cancer. But in the past year, the field has seen some huge breakthroughs, including the first FDA-approved immunotherapy for anal cancer, a relatively common but chronically underfunded disease.

In 2025, the FDA also approved a subcutaneous version of the widely used cancer drug pembrolizumab, marketed as Keytruda®. Other similar drugs have been approved in this form as well. Treatment with these drugs might soon mean a quick shot every few weeks in the doctor’s office rather than half an hour at the infusion center.

But what is most astonishing is the sheer number of new immunotherapies making the transition from lab bench to bedside. According to a report by the Cancer Research Institute, the FDA approved 13 new cancer immunotherapies in the past year alone.

3. Breakthroughs in Breast Cancer

Not every breast cancer patient benefits from chemotherapy, but until recently it was impossible to know who might be able to safely skip chemo. Results from OPTIMA, a large clinical trial, have changed that, according to the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The study found that a gene expression test known as Prosigna can identify patients who might be able to avoid chemotherapy — and its side effects — while achieving five-year survival and recurrence rates that are statistically identical to those of patients with a similar genetic profile who underwent standard-of-care chemotherapy.

4. The Rise of Cancer Vaccines

What immunotherapy was to the previous decade, cancer vaccines may be to the next one. Similar to the way vaccines train your body to fight off infection, mRNA vaccines are being used to fight cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Trials of mRNA vaccines are showing tremendous promise in late-stage, high-risk melanoma, according to a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Results released this year from trials of one such vaccine, when combined with pembrolizumab (Keytruda®), showed a 49 percent reduction in the risk of recurrence or death and a 62 percent reduction in the risk of distant metastasis or death compared with pembrolizumab alone.

Trials of cancer vaccines for colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer are also looking promising. These positive trial results could herald a future in which personalized cancer vaccines could become an important part of cancer treatment, according to a study in Cancer Discovery.

5. Breakthroughs in Cancer and Blood Tests

Treatments aren’t getting all the love. The past year has seen breakthroughs in diagnostic techniques as well. Liquid biopsy, a blood test that can detect cancer-related biomarkers, could help doctors spot cancer earlier than tissue biopsies, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

A study of liquid biopsy published in Frontiers correctly identified 79 percent of pancreatic cancers. For so-called silent cancers, such as pancreatic and ovarian cancer, that are usually in advanced stages before they show any symptoms, liquid biopsy could be life-saving.

This article is not offering medical advice and should be used for informational purposes only.

Read More: Personalized Brain Cancer Vaccine May Help Against Aggressive Glioblastoma

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

• This article references information from the American Cancer Society: Cancer statistics, 2026
• This article references information from the American Society of Clinical Oncology: Multi-Selective RAS(ON) Inhibitor Nearly Doubles Survival Time in People With Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer
• This article references information from a study published in theJournal of Clinical Oncology:First results from the OPTIMA phase III randomized non-inferiority trial of test-directed chemotherapy in patients with high clinical risk ER-positive HER2-negative early breast cancer.
• This article references information from the Cancer Research Institute: CRI Cancer Immunotherapy Insights + Impact
• This article references information from the Cancer Research Institute: First-Ever Treatments, Faster Paths to Approval, and a Shift in Global Drug Development Define the State of Cancer Immunotherapy in 2025, New Report Finds
• This article references information from the American Cancer Society: mRNA Vaccines
• This article references information from a study published in theJournal of Clinical Oncology:Intismeran Autogene Plus Pembrolizumab Versus Pembrolizumab Alone in High-Risk Resected Melanoma: 5-Year Update of the Randomized Phase IIb KEYNOTE-942 Study
• This article references information from a study published in Cancer Discovery:First-in-human testing of a mutant KRAS vaccine for pancreatic cancer interception in high-risk cohorts
• This article references information from a study published inFrontiers:Liquid biopsy in cancer diagnosis and prognosis: a paradigm shift in precision oncology