Via British magazine The Lancet, Mexican oncologists denounced before the international medical community that the restructuring of the national health system that eliminated the Seguro Popular and led to the creation of the Health Institute for Well-being (Insabi), as well as the hospital reconversion for the care of patients with covid -19, left women with breast cancer unattended.
In the most recent edition of the medical journal, the specialists pointed out that “the treatment of patients with breast cancer in Mexico has been negatively affected by the concurrent contingency of covid-19 and the process of adaptation to new health policies” .
Alejandra Platas de la Mora, director of the Doctors and Researchers in the Fight Against Cancer Foundation (MILC) and one of the authors of the study, explained in an interview with MILENIO that the text includes the results of a survey conducted among 142 Mexican women with breast cancer, in which almost 90 percent of them said their treatments were interrupted or modified at some point in 2020.
The most frequent causes were the replacement of the Seguro Popular by Insabi, with 76 interrupted cases, and the covid-19 pandemic, with 52; the remaining pauses in treatment were mainly due to a shortage of antineoplastic drugs.
“Only 50 out of 127 respondents with treatments suspended or not started answered that they were finally able to resume or start them. The average time from the suspension of the treatment to the restart was 60 days ”, the document indicates.
Meanwhile, Platas de la Mora said that “of the interrupted treatments, surgeries, chemotherapies, anti-hormonal therapy, anti-HER2 treatment, immunotherapies and radiotherapy sessions were measured. Of those surveyed, 74 percent had advanced cancer (stage III or IV), with subtype HER2 or triple negative, and the rest of the patients had stage I or II, less advanced ”.
The survey was applied between May and August 2020 to 142 people from Monterrey, Nuevo León; Mexico City, and Guadalajara, Jalisco.
“The arrival of the pandemic during the implementation of the mentioned actions and reforms (the elimination of Seguro Popular and its replacement with Insabi) has had an unprecedented impact on patients nationwide. One of the most affected populations has been cancer patients, as many have had their treatments delayed, shortened or modified.
“This situation has been especially worrying for patients with breast cancer, since they constitute the largest proportion of cancer patients in the country and also lead its cancer mortality statistics. Furthermore, patients with breast cancer in Mexico are mostly diagnosed in advanced stages, which makes their timely and continuous treatment an even more urgent issue, ”the text warns.
Platas de la Mora explained that during the study period, 69 percent of the patients had to buy the drug on their own; the rest could not due to lack of economic resources.
The study is also signed by Cynthia Villarreal-Garza, Alejandro Aranda-Gutiérrez, Ana S. Ferrigno and Fernanda Mesa-Chávez, specialists from the Breast Cancer Center, Hospital Zambrano Hellion TecSalud, in Monterrey, and by Isabelle Aloi-Timeus, founder by Fundación Salvati AC
It was published on February 1 in the British magazine The Lancet, which is the second place of the 165 publications with the greatest global influence on medicine. Last week he released the intermediate results of the phase 3 trial of the Gamaleya Center’s anticovid vaccine, in which the biological one showed an efficacy of more than 91 percent.
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