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Researchers from INCLIVA, the Hospital Clínico de València and CIBERONC, participate in the campaign ‘Make history with your story’, launched by the GEICAM Breast Cancer Research Group, which is broadcast coinciding with Mother’s Day, in which patients who were mothers while suffering from breast cancer explain their experience and highlight the importance of both the medical team to overcome this process and research so that other women with this disease can become mothers.
The objective of the campaign is to advance the knowledge of the relationship between breast cancer and pregnancy, counting on the collaboration of the patients themselves, and to help women with this disease who wish to become mothers, providing them with the best advice and the most appropriate treatment. suitable.
Via ‘Make history with your story’ Women who have had breast cancer during or up to a year after pregnancy are encouraged and have overcome it; those who have preserved their fertility prior to cancer treatment; and to those who, having had breast cancer, have been mothers or wish to, to participate with their medical history in the project ‘Breast cancer and the desire to be a Mother’, carried out by GEICAM in collaboration with CIBERONC) and the Maimonides Institute for Biomedical Research of Córdoba (IMIBIC).
In this way, GEICAM aims to better understand the clinical needs of these women, the success and safety of fertility preservation techniques, treatment strategies during pregnancy and the way in which this situation can affect the development of the fetus and to the birth and health of the baby.
In women who are diagnosed with breast cancer during pregnancy or the year after it, the relationship between the physiological changes that occur in pregnancy and in lactation with the development of the tumor is being studied, with the aim of predicting this situation and design strategies aimed at achieving safe pregnancies, explains Juan de la Haba, director of the Breast and Clinical Research Unit of the Reina Sofía de Córdoba University Hospital, member of GEICAM and CIBERONC. “On the other hand, more and more women, after having breast cancer, want to be mothers and, in some cases, measures are necessary to promote pregnancy, but we need to know if they are really safe for all patients “, Explain. In his opinion, it is necessary to confirm whether there is a causal relationship between pregnancy and the appearance of breast cancer, which must be well defined to avoid the development of the tumor during pregnancy and, in addition, to be able to better advise patients that have already had breast cancer and ask about the risks of being a mother.
“We do not have official data on this type of patients nor is there a national registry, so GEICAM set out to develop a study that would allow us to have a picture of the reality of breast cancer and pregnancy”, sign Begoña Bermejo, another of the project coordinators, of the INCLIVA Breast Cancer Biology Research Group, of the Medical Oncology Service of the Hospital Clínico de València, CIBERONC and a member of the GEICAM board of directors. “The bell ‘Make history with your story’ Therefore, it intends that women who have suffered from gestational breast cancer contact the centers participating in the study to provide clinical information and that we can analyze molecular data of the tumor and blood, in order to determine any biological or genetic characteristics that differentiate breast cancers that occur during pregnancy with respect to other breast tumors or find out if genetically these women have a higher risk of developing this tumor during pregnancy ”, adds Dr. Bermejo.
Advances in therapeutic strategies to facilitate motherhood
With the delay in the age of the first pregnancy, the number of cases of women who, when they receive the diagnosis of breast cancer, have not yet fulfilled their desire to be mothers, has increased, and furthermore, with chemotherapy treatment they may see a decrease their ability to be. “The preservation of ovules, the use of drugs to keep the ovary at rest, or the cryopreservation of ovarian tissue are some of those that have proven to be more effective,” says Dr. De la Haba.
In recent years, these strategies have become more important and, from the fertility units, programs have been established through which these women are referred so that fertility preservation techniques can be applied. “This has evolved a lot and almost all the centers have a reference site to which to refer these women, in an early and coordinated manner,” adds Dr. Bermejo.
About the GEICAM Breast Cancer Research Group
GEICAM is the leading group in breast cancer research in Spain and has a recognized international prestige. It is currently made up of more than 800 experts, who work in 200 centers throughout Spain. Among its main objectives is to promote clinical, epidemiological and translational research, continuing medical training and outreach to provide information to those affected and their families about the treatments and their side effects. Since its constitution in 1995, to date, GEICAM has carried out more than a hundred research studies of all kinds and in all stages of the disease, in which more than 60,000 women have participated.
Campaign link: https://hazhistoria.geicam.org/
Link to participate: https://hazhistoria.geicam.org/participar/
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