The Foundation for Excellence and Quality in Oncology (ECO) was founded in 2009 with the aim of ensuring the Excellence in oncological care for patients with cancer combining the efforts of leading experts in the field of oncology. At the head of the same, for a year now, is Aragonese doctor and researcher Jesús García-Foncillashead of the Oncology Department at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation University Hospital and professor of oncology at the Autonomous University of Madrid.We seek to increase the well-being of patients by promoting their quality of life but also to work to create environments where professionals from any discipline involved with cancer patients can find themselves in the most appropriate way to improve their care,” describes this expert.
In this regard, he believes that Aragon is working at “the highest level”“Not only in healthcare for these patients, but also in oncological research, an area where he assures that both the Community and Spain as a whole already occupy a privileged position in clinical research.”The quality of care in oncology in Aragon is very high and proof of this is the accreditation under the highest standards of the American Society of Oncology of hospitals such as Miguel Servet.with the Dr. Antonio Anton to his head,” he notes.
Delays in accessing new cancer therapies
On the contrary, from this foundation that brings together 87 heads of medical oncology services from different Spanish hospitals, they point out the major handicaps that this health area and its patients face. Among them, Dr. García-Foncillas mentions the delay that there is at the state level in the incorporation of therapeutic innovationonce the European Medicines Agency has approved a particular drug for a specific indication.
According to the latest WAIT (Waiting to Access Innovative Therapies) report, the average delay in the incorporation of a drug in Spain has already reached 22 months since European authorization. “This period of 661 days is longer than that mentioned in the previous report, which was 629 days. Other countries have a shorter incorporation time in their service portfolio than Spain. In December 2023, Spain has added 103 new drugs to the national health system, 62% of those authorised in Europe. The average delay time constitutes a handicap for patients who can benefit from some new therapies to achieve the benefit that these drugs represent,” warns this oncologist, who proposes to the Ministry limit the times evaluation so that they do not take too long and improve financing management of these new medicines through the National Health System.
“In Aragon, the care provided to cancer patients is at the level of the best international centres for the treatment of this disease”
Despite these delays, Dr. Jesús García-Foncillas points out that There are advances in other areas that are worth congratulating ourselves on.such as the “excellent level” of clinical research that exists in Spain.In our country, it is being carried out, in relation to other countries in our environment, a much higher number of clinical trials“This allows cancer patients to be treated within these research units, and this allows us to offer them options that would otherwise be very difficult to consider,” he says.
Even so, the efforts of professionals who combine long days of clinical practice with their research work are noteworthy. “Research is complicated, there are no environments where this process is easy”complains this specialist. The bureaucratic and administrative barriers, added to the fact that often “there is no recognition of any kind” towards these research teams makes, in his opinion, it extremely difficult to combine both professions. “But despite the excessive workload that these professionals carry, they continue to achieve results far above those of other countries in our environment, which is tremendously praiseworthy,” he adds.
Cancer in figures
In 2023, tumors became the main cause of death in the Spanish population, ahead of diseases of the circulatory system and representing 26.6% of total deaths. “It is true that here The decline in the number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases, which has fallen by 5.3%, plays an important role, but neverthelesscompared to last year, Cancer continues to increase and now occupies first place,” emphasizes this specialist.
Globally, the incidence of cancer is expected to skyrocket in the coming decades, rising from 19 million cases of cancer in 2020, according to GloboCAN, to more than 30 million by 2040.That means an increase of more than 56%. And if we look at cancer mortality worldwide, GloboCAN tells us that in 2020, 9 million people died of cancer, and the estimate is that in 2040, the number will exceed 16 million. A little more and mortality will double in a period of 20 years,” warns García-Foncillas. In the opinion of this specialist, the causes that would be behind all this continue to be Tobacco, alcohol and certain infectious agents As the human papilloma virusthe virus of the hepatitis Bthe hepatitis C wave helicobapter tilori bacteriawhich is related to the risk of developing stomach cancer. “Along with these causes, special attention must now be paid to obesity and the various factors that lead to it, such as unhealthy dietary habits,” adds the oncologist.
As future challenges to achieve excellence and quality in the area of oncology, this expert advocates put emphasis on the most frequent tumorsgiven the impact they have on society, but also in those tumors where the results are still poor, such as brain tumors, some types of sarcomas or pancreatic cancer. “In these tumors, progress is much slower. On the other hand, We had very aggressive tumors like lung cancer that we are seeing that in just a few years we have been able to transform the dire prognosis. “I had and I can talk about long-term survivors. We have to work along the same lines on these other tumors where the prognosis is poor and where we do not have therapeutic options that allow us to foresee longer survival times,” he claims.
To achieve this, in his opinion, the most important point is to work on early diagnosis. “It is true that we increasingly have drugs and therapeutic options with more benefits, but it is also true that The best treatment for cancer is to detect it at its earliest stage so that we can resolve it without it ever metastasizing,” he adds.
In this sense, this oncologist from Zaragoza advocates continuing to train all healthcare specialists who work with cancer patients and promoting a multidisciplinary approach to each oncological process.A fundamental aspect here is to raise awareness among patients, and that is critical in two points: healthy habits – a special crusade must be made to reduce obesity and the risks that arise from it – and Insist that people at risk can be more proactive in early detection, going for check-upsetc.”, he concludes.