Fighting prostate cancer depends on two keys

He prostate cancer It is the third with the highest mortality rate behind lung and colorectal cancer, given which the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM) considers prostate cancer a problem of public health. Despite this, the prognosis for survival is high, that is, if the problem is stopped before it worsens. There are two keys to achieving this: the impulse of early diagnostic with a state population screening plan as the most effective resource and the multidisciplinary approach to the disease to respond to the new demographic and, therefore, healthcare paradigm.

The set of Medical Writing has welcomed, within the framework of the World Prostate Cancer Day and thanks to the collaboration of Recordati, a debate with experts about this and other premises to understand the present and future in prevention and treatment of the disease. The president of the Spanish Association of Urology (AEU), José Luis Álvarez Osorio; the general director of Recordati Spain, Javier Carpintero; and the second vice president of the National Prostate Cancer Association (Ancap), César Comuñas Alfarosat down at this newspaper’s table to face the analysis.

The importance of early diagnosis in prostate cancer

A first x-ray of prostate cancer in Spain paints a picture with more than 30,000 new cases a year. “It is the first type of cancer in men in Spain and in Europe,” Álvarez Osorio highlighted, an aspect that is repeated in terms of prevalence of this disease, which is “very high”: “In the next five or ten years it is expected to double, just like that of colorectal cancer; and that the rate of lung cancer is multiplied by four. It will be a socio-health problem and very important economically.”

In any case, the specialist has called for calm. “There is a very important percentage of those affected who will have a long survival,” she detailed, warning that, beyond the risk factor’s -age, race, family history, environmental factors, obesity and unhealthy habits such as alcohol and tobacco consumption-, this survival rate depends, in large part, on detecting the disease before it becomes too late.

“The first symptoms are non-existent, they only begin to be noticed in advanced stages of cancer. It is very important to arrive on time to diagnose a patient so that we can cure them with the different treatment alternatives that we have,” he explained.

In this sense, however, the National Health System (SNS) encounters certain handicaps: “There is a very clear reality in our country: the waiting list to see a urologist increases and, if the population ages, the number of cases will grow, but the number of urologists is the same ”, lamented Carpintero.

In this context, the implementation of a population screening strategy at the state level is especially relevant, according to experts: “It is the most powerful tool to carry out a true early diagnostic“Comuñas stressed. Not in vain, according to Álvarez, “being able to diagnose a patient with localized prostate cancer will prevent its development in a very high percentage, between 90 and 100 percent of cases, which are the “We are going to be able to heal.”

“There seems to be some consensus that 40 percent of tumors, including this one, would be preventable if we drastically reduced the tobacco and alcohol consumption and if we could control environmental pollution, but in the other 60 percent cancer will appear. That is why prevention is vital. It makes the difference between life and death,” added the head of Ancap, who emphasized that his association “clearly advocates for population screening.”

The first check-ups, as Carpintero has stressed, must be done from the age of 45 or 50. “If a cancer is caught in its early stages, the chances of having a quality of life increase. “Patients are concerned about living, but then they are concerned about living well,” he highlighted.

Multidisciplinary teams and personalized medicine

In this same sense, the second vice president of Ancap has regretted that the SNS addresses prostate cancer “with shock treatment”, which will only “take you away from death in the short or medium term.” “The problem is that subsequent therapies continue with that same intention. The patient begins to suffer a lot of side effects that weigh on their quality of life in a very important way,” he added.

Comuñas has also defended the importance of the health care model moving towards multidisciplinary teams. “They have many benefits. One of them is that they get much more complete information to put the patient at the center of the problem and achieve individualized treatments”, he remarked.

For Carpintero, this is “the great challenge” that society faces, taking into account the demographic change experienced in recent times, with an older population and, therefore, with more chronicity and multiple pathologies: “We have to see how to rely on existing tools to see how we can make a broader approach and accompany patients throughout the survival of the pathology.”

According to the general director of Recordati Spain, thinking about a model of “global approach” to prostate cancer It also offers a solution to the support needed not only by the patients themselves, but also by their families, something that in the pharmaceutical company “we know first-hand because we are with both the patients and the professionals.”

Along these lines, Recordati is committed to alleviating “the fear and uncertainty” of those affected “through communication, accompanying them and giving them access to extensive information about their illness.” “We dedicate resources and efforts to supporting patients, developing educational materials for them; and signing research agreements with hospitals or other Spanish entities,” explained Carpintero, who has also valued the work that, in this sense, is done by groups such as the AEU.

“When specialists address and put a stop to the disease, their work ends, but the patient’s anxiety, questions, doubts, and concerns do not dissipate. And then it turns out that there is an association that can help them. Where the doctor’s work ends, that of the association begins to accompany, to continue informing, to educate and to indicate paths, simply so that the patient does not feel alone,” Comuñas explained.

The second vice president of Ancap, in any case, referred to the need to improve access to drugs before doing so. “As patients, we have to wait for as much progress as possible and, above all, that the treatment is not delayed too much. drug approval and its disposition,” he said, an aspect shared by Carpintero: “Many times it is not just about having the best of the best, but about having access to the best of the best. That is a great workhorse that we continue to need to improve.”

Challenges in therapeutic advances in prostate cancer

Looking ahead to tomorrow, the president of the AEU is ambitious regarding the prostate cancer therapies: “The future should involve having markers that will tell us which patients are going to respond well and to what type of treatment.” According to Álvarez Osorio, although he has been working on it for “years”, it has not yet been achieved.

“We have an important battery of medications that gives patients a good quality of life, but we would need to know which drug is the best for each person, above all, because the Economic cost “What could be saved is important and because some of them have adverse effects that we could avoid for patients,” the specialist stated.

In the case of Recordati, its efforts to provide options therapeutic are not limited to prostate cancer, but to other pathologies such as benign prostatic hyperplasia and other minor ones such as erectile dysfunction as an “area of ​​social importance,” according to Carpintero, who has also highlighted initiatives linked to Mental healththe Gastroenterology and the Pediatrics.

Regarding prostate cancer, the general director for SPC at Recordati Spain has advocated “being positive.” “The prognosis is getting better, the tools we have are better and we have a exceptional medical class in Spain”, he stated.

Of course, he has stressed that greater dissemination of the problem is necessary: ​​“We need more support and more government awareness, but not only to provide means, but to put them in the right places. Hopefully next year this disclosure will be a little less necessary than this year.”