2024-10-15 12:00:00
We, a collective of eleven associations, made up of Collectif 1310 bringing together associations involved in metastatic breast cancer, but also Cerhom and Anamacap involved in male cancers, and My lung cancer network. With health professionals and stakeholders, we are calling on public decision-makers about the chronic nature of these cancers that have spread to several organs. We call for consideration of the challenges that this development poses for patients and society.
Some metastatic cancers become chronic when the disease is considered non-curable based on current medical knowledge, but its progression can be controlled. In just a few years, therapeutic innovations have positively transformed the prognosis of these metastatic diseases. They make it possible to live longer, while improving the quality of personal and professional life of the people concerned.
However, these improvements cannot be an illusion: the disease remains unstable, invisible and uncertain, with the threat of relapse and the cumulative effects of treatment.
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This paradoxical situation is unprecedented. It raises three major new challenges: having health data to identify new needs and improve care; develop the organization and coordination of care; change the outlook of society, which makes patients invisible in their social and professional lives.
Better understand and understand the impact of chronic cancers
Today, there is no precise assessment of the number of these cancers and their evolution, nor specialized registers. The available health data remains fragmented, general and too old.
Having this data would make it possible to advance research and carry out more adapted and targeted public policies in the territories, while fighting against inequalities in access and care.
We call for the creation of indicators specific to metastatic cancers in order to better identify them. For this we need the mobilization of all the players in the sector, associations, doctors, but also health authorities, the general management of healthcare provision, Health Insurance, the National Institute of Cancer (Inca), to work on the definition of these indicators and their collection.
Optimize care pathways and monitoring adapted to lifelong treatments
Our health system is today designed for the management of cancers located in hospitals. It is not yet sufficiently adapted to the treatment pathways for metastatic cancers and does not have the means to coordinate with the city. And paradoxically, the more the disease takes hold, the less support patients receive over time.
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