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Medical experts conclude that this condition can be reduced with "targeted" or targeted therapies.

Understanding the biology of diseases and, from that point on, developing more accurate drugs, made bad cancer treatments more effective, less aggressive and prolonged the life expectancy of patients, said Ricardo Álvarez , Director of the Centers of America Cancer Research Center. He added that with this, in the last 15 years, the mortality due to this pathology has decreased by 39% in Latin America. He recently announced it in Cali, Colombia, in the educational forum for communicators in Latin America.

"We have been successful in developing drugs that allow us to act faster, with more precise, more targeted, less toxic and shorter treatments.Breast cancer we have seen a decrease in mortality," he explained. "This translates into thousands of patients who may have a longer life expectancy."

For about 20 years, we had knowledge of the genome and its processes in the body, but we had not been able to apply that knowledge.

"We continued to treat patients in the same way despite better knowledge of biology," he said.

He said that chemotherapy, one of the most common treatments for cancer for 50 years, it was "like shooting a gun in the air at night, but now targeted therapies are much more accurate and only attack the malignant cells. "

Promising Alternatives
Daniel Ciriano, Medical Director of Roche Pharma Latinoamérica, explains that thanks to bad cancer research, it has been understood that not all tumors are identical, which leads to more personalized treatments .

"There are tumors that have a type of receptor called HER2 positive, these are particularly aggressive and today we have specific agents that target them," said Ciriano. He added that HER2 positive affects about one in five women.

"Currently, we can not talk about healing, but when we see that it has been possible to increase the rate of remission so long, that we are getting a better quality of life, full of "However, he admitted that one of the main challenges remains the timely diagnosis," since nothing replaces prevention or early treatment. "

Ricardo Álvarez accepted this hypothesis; However, he commented that in the region there is still a lack of education of medical staff and patients.

DATA
Every 30 seconds somewhere in the world a woman dies bad cancer, according to the WHO It is estimated that between 30% and 40% of cancer cases in Latin America are diagnosed at the advanced metastatic stage.

He argued that to reduce death rates cancer patients need to empower themselves in their health and governments need to ensure social policies to screen for and access new drugs . According to the World Health Organization (WHO), bad cancer screening programs must reach 70% of the target population to make a difference.

However, among the countries of Latin America that have data available, "The problem is that in the region we have not had continuous policies, when policies change, it also changes completely the health system in the countries, "he lamented.

against cancer will not produce results in two or three years and to have positive results, it is essential to invest time, efforts and economic and human resources (EFE / PT)

Prevention
° Women can choose with their bads through a sporadic revision during a self-examination for cancer awareness. If you notice any changes, bumps or other unusual signs in your bad, talk to your doctor immediately.

Data

Incidence