More people are surviving cancer than ever before, in part due to advances in diagnosis and treatment. Since the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, an unprecedented strain has been placed on healthcare providers to manage the backlog and demand for cancer services. In response, the NHS has published an ambitious long term plan to diagnose cancer at an earlier stage and improve the five year survival rate, maintaining the decade-on-decade fall in mortality rates previously seen.

This special issue of the British Journal of Biomedical Science (Impact Factor of 2.7 and Citescore of 4.4) highlights the latest research and development in the diverse field of cancer, and how these innovations move our understanding forwards, leading to improvements in the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of these conditions.

Keywords: cancer treatment, NHS, cancer diagnosis, Novel biomarkers, RNA biology, Targeted immunotherapies, Genomic testing, Gene editing, Epigenetics