From September 9 to 13, the city of Paris has brought together more than 29,000 experts in a new Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) to offer a revolutionary perspective in the fight once morest cancerallowing to multiply the Life expectancy of the people who suffer from it. Thus, ESMO reflected that following years as a future promise, finally the immunotherapy has emerged as the undisputed queen of cancer treatment. These are some of the conclusions that Xavier Magraner analyzes in the chronicle of this event for the ‘Oncology Podcast’.
The immunotherapythe personalized medicine and the cell therapies rise up like a new trident once morest this type of disease, offering more effectiveness and even leaving in the background the chemotherapy.
Throughout this edition of ESMO the different pavilions where the presentationsbaptized with names of distinctive French cities, were from early in the morning practically crowded. The lung cancer and the Liver cancer They have been two of the diseases that have made the most progress at ESMO. The treatment adjuvant and the combination of new drugs is already, de facto, an advance that allows improving the Life expectancy from the patients. Dolores Islandhead of the Medical Oncology Service of the Lozano Blesa Clinical Hospitalremember that “Some lung cancers affect the Central Nervous System, and 90 percent of patients free of disease at four years have been achieved”. This is, therefore, a huge impact on the quality of life of patients that until now had not been achieved.
On the other hand, there were numerous debates where specialists from different European countries met to present their point of view regarding different diseases and how to manage common roadmap. One of these meetings was linked to the Liver cancer y Bruno Sangrocoordinator of the Hepatobiliopancreatic Oncology Area of the Navarra University Clinicstates that this disease has gone from suffering atherapeutic nihilism with patients to achieve the best treatment for each patient. Immunotherapy is no longer a alternative to chemotherapybut has become a royal road to combat this type of disease.
In relation to the breast cancerhighly debated during the ESMO congress in light of the latest developments presented at the American Congress of the Society for Medical Oncology (ASCO), the hormonal field takes center stage in patients previously treated with hormones in the triple negative type. As stated Javier Cortes at ESMO, director of the International Breast Cancer Center (Ibcc), “we are facing a new therapeutic option for a group of patients who have received at least two lines of chemotherapy in metastatic context”.
ESMO sets the pace for Oncology in Europe
The ESMO congress held in the City of Light confirms, once once more, the potential of the European society at a global level, remaining as the largest knowledge center in Oncology of the Old Continent. The illusion personified throughout the congress was Andres Cervantesnext president of ESMO from January, who recalled that “Europe is turning to cancer and in January the first projects that are part of the European Plan once morest Cancer. We are sure that the cancer mortality might be reduced by 30 per cent at the end of this decade.
Spain, barrier to oncology innovation
Despite presenting trials with some survival figures never seen to date, there is a great visible skepticism in ESMO among Spanish oncologists that these therapies will be implemented in our country. “In Spain there is no access to innovationthe Ministry of Health it does not approve many treatments, and it is a moral problem when you face a patient with few therapeutic options, solutions are increased and the therapeutic positioning report does not approve it”, he affirms Andrés Muñoz Martinassistant doctor of the Medical Oncology Service of the Gregorio Marañón University Hospital.
This Achilles heel, entrenched in Spain for a long time according to several oncologists who participated in ESMO, is assuming a huge recoil As regards the mass arrival of innovative treatments approved in Europe and already used in most of the countries of the European Union. This barrier to science, as many Spanish ESMO specialists recognized, “must fall as soon as possible”.
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The immunotherapy begins a before and following within Oncology following the edition of ESMO held in Paris, because it is already offering great results in Europe with regard to diseases derived from the specialty. The chemotherapy takes, following years monopolizing the approach to cancer, a background. Now, Spain must decide whether to join the innovation car or, conversely, stay in a eternal nihilism.
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