Almost five women a day are diagnosed with breast cancer in the Basque Country

Read in Basque: Almost five women are diagnosed with breast cancer every day in the Basque Country

Every year between 1,600 and 1,800 people are diagnosed with breast cancer in the Basque Country, almost 5 a day taking the upper part of the fork as a reference. This has been revealed today, Thursday, in the 14th International Symposium of the GEICAM Group on Breast Cancer Researchwhich this year is held at the Kursaal in San Sebastián, from April 27 to 29.

To deal with this situation, the solution must take two parallel paths: the early diagnosis and investigation.

As explained in the presentation of the meeting held in the Gipuzkoan capital, the associated mortality to this tumor shrinks by about 1% each year, with a median survival greater than 80% 5 years after diagnosis. This has been explained by Dr. Ander Urruticoechea, vice-president of GEICAM, scientific coordinator of the Symposium and medical oncologist of the Gipuzkoa Cancer Management Unit (OSI Donostialdea-Onkologikoa – Osakidetza), in a note from the research group sent to the media.

The pandemic generated by covid-19 has had a positive impact on the knowledge available about the disease and its treatments, since the independent research of multidisciplinary cooperative groups such as GEICAM has experienced a boost in its social perception.

“The leading cause of years of potential life lost in Gipuzkoafor example, in recent years for which we have data, it is breast cancer, and this is because it affects a population with an average age of about 60 years, that is, a young population”, Urruticoechea has indicated.

To minimize the damage suffered by patients with this disease, he adds, “we need to improve outcomes in breast cancer and investigate how to better diagnose and treat these patients to reduce the enormous social burden that this entails.”

However, the prognosis of patients with breast cancer has greatly improved in recent years thanks to earlier diagnoses, the use of therapies directed at specific tumors, the identification of patient populations that will not need chemotherapy, and to a lower toxicity of the treatments.

Coinciding with the Vice President of GEICAM, another of the Symposium coordinators, Dr. Isabel Álvarez López, member of the Board of Directors of GEICAM and medical oncologist of the Gipuzkoa Cancer Management Unit (OSI Donostialdea-Onkologikoa – Osakidetza), highlighted the advances in breast cancer when the disease is localized (early) and when it is advanced (metastatic).

In the first case, the fundamental objective is to achieve the best results for each patient, minimizing toxicities as much as possible, for which it is essential to have tools that help customize, individualize, and be more precise.

On the other hand, “in metastatic breast cancer, the objective of research is to cure, something that is far from our reach; however, we are achieving, in many cases, chronic disease, with fairly good quality of life indices, although we still have a long way to go,” says Dr. Álvarez.

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