A New World of Lung Cancer Therapy Awaits Pope Leo

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.

In a way, Pope Leo XIV may be lucky he got lung cancer now and not, say, six years ago. Treatments have changed so much, specialists say, that the old days are almost unrecognizable.

For many patients, said Karen Knudsen, the chief executive of the Parker Institute, lung cancer is no longer the dire diagnosis it was in the past.

They have other options, Dr. Knudsen said.

“There’s a whole new world we heard about at ASCO,” she said, referring to a recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. There are antibodies, she said, that can see a tumor and bring a chemotherapy to it. Clinical trials using these drugs in patients with advanced cancer have had “phenomenal results,” she added.

The New York Times, October 14, 2026, By Gina Kolata and Carolyn Y. Johnson