Bladder cancer is among the ten most common cancers worldwide and therefore constitutes a substantial health-care burden. This Review summarizes the global trends in bladder cancer incidence and mortality, and describes the main risk factors associated with bladder cancer occurrence and outcomes. The implications, challenges and opportunities of these epidemiological trends for public health and clinical practice are also discussed.

Globally, gastric cancer is a common and highly fatal cancer with two anatomical subtypes, non-cardia and cardia gastric cancer. Helicobacter pylori causes almost 90% of distal gastric cancers worldwide. The authors of this Review summarize the current epidemiology of gastric cancer and the evidence and implications of primary and secondary prevention efforts.

Advances in surgical technique and chemotherapy regimens have improved the survival outcomes of patients with pancreatic cancer, although these remain dismal relative to most other solid tumours. Attempts to further improve outcomes have led to increasing research interest in neoadjuvant therapy, which is beginning to improve the outcomes of certain subgroups of patients. In this Review, the authors provide an overview of the various neoadjuvant therapy approaches for patients with pancreatic cancer, including discussions of several promising future research directions

Genomics-based precision medicine has improved the outcomes of patients with certain types of cancers, although most do not derive benefit. Here, the authors describe the development of functional patient-specific assays, including those based on organoids, spheroids and explants, and how clinical implementation of these models might extend the benefits of precision medicine to a much broader range of patients.

The FDA Accelerated Approval pathway, which has been pivotal in enabling early access to new oncology drugs over the past three decades, has recently come under increased scrutiny. New draft guidance published in March 2023 offers several possible solutions to improve this pathway, with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for patients with cancer, but might also have important limitations.

Between 2016 and 2022, 83 previously approved oncology drugs were covered and reimbursed in China through a value-based pricing negotiation programme, which resulted in substantial price cuts but did not improve the correlation between drug cost and clinical benefit. Herein, we call for an improved, transparent value-based pricing model to better account for high-value innovation in oncology drugs.