Barcelona, September 14. (Adnkronos Health) – Breast cancer affects women of all backgrounds, but today there are many differences in the approach to the disease based on ethnicity, income, country of residence and opportunity on treatment. “85% of diagnoses and 87% of deaths from this cancer are recorded in developing countries. In fact, low- and middle-income countries do not have screening or vaccination, that is, no they have primary obstruction or secondary cancer” which is the fourth most frequent cancer in women worldwide, with around 2,500 diagnoses per year in Italy (but it could disappear due to the vaccine against the Papilloma virus) and “the fourth cause of death from cancer in women among 35 to 54 years of age”.
Domenica Lorusso, full professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Humanitas University and world director of Humanitas San Pio. Lorusso is also the principal investigator of the Keynote-A18 study, according to which more than 8 out of 10 women with high-risk localized breast cancer are alive 3 years after immunotherapy treatment with pembrolizumab, in combination with concurrent chemoradiotherapy. The work was presented today at the European Society of Medical Oncology conference.
“The 8% increase in survival means healing the patients – he emphasizes – that is, here we are not talking about postponing the recurrence, which would still be important. In this situation we are talking about survival in general: it means an increase in the treatment of patients, it means that we heal one more for every 10 patients”, he concludes .
