PLAYA DEL CARMEN (EFE).—Multiple myeloma, a hematological cancer for which more than two decades ago patients were given a life expectancy of two to three years, now has an average of eight years, and some even have a survival rate of 15 or 16 years longer, said hematologist David Gómez Almaguer in an interview.
“There is already a small percentage (of patients) who can be cured. It was considered incurable, that is no longer the case, but certainly few patients are cured, between 10% and 15%. So there has been a lot of progress. Life expectancy has quadrupled,” explained Gómez during the eleventh edition of the Amgen Medical Excellence Summit (CEMA 2024) held in the Mexican Caribbean.
However, the president of the Mexican Society of Cellular Therapy and Bone Marrow Transplants also explained that survival from this plasma cell cancer occurs when treatments are received “in a timely manner.”
“This is not easy in many circumstances due to the economic and political health situation in the country (Mexico),” he stressed following describing public spending on health as low and “inefficient.”
For the specialist, investment in education, diagnostic capacity and treatments for multiple myeloma is essential, since, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are regarding 5,000 Mexicans living with this type of cancer and regarding 2,500 new cases are diagnosed each year.
“A good treatment solves many problems, it eliminates consultations, relapses, suffering in the economic and human aspect,” said the specialist, emphasizing that at the moment there are “impressive advances” in the medications to treat this condition, but the problem continues to be “its high cost.” Therefore, he insisted on the importance of investing in “good treatments” for oncological pathologies such as multiple myeloma that are not very “popular” and cannot be prevented, only diagnosed early because “their origin is unknown.”
According to the WHO, multiple myeloma rarely affects people under 30 years of age, as 90% of cases are in patients over 50 years of age, so one of the most obvious risk factors for this cancer is advanced age.
Speaking regarding a possible evolution of this disease, Gómez offered a scenario in which by 2050 the population pyramid in Mexico will begin to widen, meaning there will be fewer young people and more older people.
“These older people are going to have more illness, more cancer. We are seeing more and more older people with myeloma because there are more and more older people,” he stressed.
Facing this reality is not an easy task, and to do so, the expert pointed out the need for more hematologists in Mexico, but with training that allows them to have access to “modern diagnostics and tools.”
“A doctor who is faced with an accident and sees an injured person and has nothing to work with is not going to be very different from the person who is next to him applying pressure to a wound,” he admitted, adding that at the very least in Mexico there should be one hematologist for every 100,000 inhabitants.
He also pointed out that the biggest health problem in Mexico is “overweight and obesity” because this will have repercussions in many situations in the future, including cancer.
“It is very difficult to treat someone with cancer and obesity than to treat someone who is not obese, and in multiple myeloma it is the same case because of mobility, fractures, and the doses of medicine increase with weight, so it is a problem,” he warns.
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2024-07-08 01:14:21
