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Cali (Colombia) – Understanding the biology of diseases and, from there, developing more accurate drugs have made breast cancer treatments more effective, less aggressive and prolong life expectancy of patients, said expert Ricardo Álvarez in Efe
On the occasion of the celebration of the Roche Press Day, the director of the Cancer Research Center of America has explained that having understood genomic diseases, In the past 15 years, breast cancer mortality has decreased by 39% in Latin America.
"We have been able to develop drugs that can act faster, with more precise, more targeted, less toxic and shorter treatments.Breast cancer, we found a decrease in mortality, he explained,
He added that this translates into thousands of patients who may have higher expectations.
Breast cancer is most common among Latin American women and its incidence increases in the region.
In 2012, about 152,000 new cases were diagnosed and, if this trend continues, it is expected that 240,000 women will be diagnosed by 2030, an increase by 57%.
The specialist explained that about twenty years ago had knowledge of the genome and its processes in the body, but had not applied this knowledge. favor of patients
"We have s continued to treat patients in the same way despite greater knowledge of biology, "said the expert at Roche Press Day, an educational forum for communicators in Latin America. Álvarez said that with the development now of white therapies, the treatment for patients is more directed which "allows to act faster, with more precision, less toxicity and
He added that chemotherapy, one of the most common cancer treatments for 50 years, was "like shooting a gun in the air at night, but now targeted therapies are much more accurate and they only attack malignant cells. "
Daniel Ciriano, medical director of Roche Pharma Latin America, explained that through breast cancer research, it has been understood that not all tumors are identical, which leads to a customization "There are tumors that have a type of receptor called HER2 positive, these are particularly aggressive and today we have specific agents directed against this type of tumors," said Ciriano.
The specialist specified that HER2 was positive. affects about one in five women.
He indicated that, in the case of breast cancer, there are patients who have tumors with positive hormone receptors, which makes them identical. It's more aggressive and grow faster.
"In the case of breast cancer, there is one positive HER2 receptor that affects one in five women," he said.
However, new treatments were obtained blocking hormone receptors that increased the remission (control) of the disease by up to 20%.
"Today, we can not talk about healing, but when we see that it has been possible to increase the rate of remission for so long, we have reached However, Ciriano has accepted that one of the main challenges remains the timely diagnosis "because nothing replaces prevention or early treatment."
Ricardo Álvarez agreed that an early diagnosis is important, however, in the region , there is always a lack of education of medical staff and patients.
"We need education. People should know that they must go to the doctor when they are healthy. "
According to the specialist, a late diagnosis considerably reduces the patient's chances of survival.
It is estimated that between 30 and 40 years old He argued that, to reduce cancer mortality rates, the Patients should be made accountable for their health and governments should ensure social policies for screening and screening for breast cancer Access to new drugs
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) ), breast cancer screening programs must reach 70% of the target population to make the difference.
However, between the Latin American countries that have data available, none is getting closer to this goal
In Colombia, for example, this figure is between 32 and 46%, whereas in Mexico only The problem is that in the region we did not have continuous policies, when the political s change, this also completely changes the health system in the countries, "he lamented.
He pointed out that the fight against cancer will not work in two or three years and to have positive results, it is essential to invest time, effort and resources both economically and economically. human.
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