Chicago becomes from this Friday until Tuesday the epicenter of the cancer research. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) celebrates its annual congress with the focus on less invasive treatments and a better relationship between doctors and patients.
The collaboration between professionals and patients stands, according to the organizers, as the cornerstone of care and research, and will focus part of the agenda of a meeting that expects some 40,000 participants, a figure that recovers pre-pandemic levels of the coronavirus.
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The president of ASCO, Eric Winer, admits that the relationship between doctors and patients has changed in recent years: digital access to medical information -and also misinformation- has been a specific source of confusion, which is why greater contact between professionals and patients improves both the diagnosis and the medical experience itself.
A report of efe explains that the appointment at the McCormick Place convention center will ask attendees an introspection exercise to examine what has improved and worsened, and what can be done to make the interactions more satisfying.
Founded in 1964 by seven oncologists, ASCO’s mission is to end cancer through research, education, and the promotion of fairer, higher-quality healthcare, recognizing that many cancers remain difficult to diagnose. and try.
The latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO) reflect that cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and accounted for some 10 million deaths in 2020, or almost one in six. Breast cancer, lung cancer, colon and rectal cancer, and prostate cancer led the new cases that year.
Chemotherapy treatments
The ASCO congress serves as a point of exchange for research advances, which point towards less invasive treatments or towards greater precision in the use of drug-antibody conjugates.
One of these innovations will come from MEDSIR, a company dedicated to advancing clinical research in oncology based in Spain and the United States.
With the scientific leadership of researchers Javier Cortés, Antonio Llombart-Cussac and José Pérez, their phase 2 clinical trial PHERGain, which will be presented this Friday afternoon, offers a new individualized approach to treat HER2-positive localized breast cancer and it is considered a significant step towards less toxic methods.
The study, according to MEDSIR, evaluates the possibility of “de-escalating” chemotherapy treatments in patients with this subtype of cancer, thanks to an adaptive approach based on the response observed by positron emission tomography (PET) and the pathological response. complete.
First trials confirm the effectiveness of HeberFERON against diffuse tumors
The congress also brings together representatives of institutes such as the French Curie Institute, which will bring to Chicago the clinical benefits of liquid biopsy, the name given to the blood test used to confirm or detect the presence of tumor cells.
It also brings together pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, which will disseminate the results of treatments that it considers could change cancer care. Among them, about the potential of the drug trastuzumab deruxtecan in a wide range of HER2 tumors in advanced stages.
According to Gralow, there are reasons for hope. The pace of drug approvals against different cancer classes and targets is so “amazing” that it “is hard to keep up.” “And this is thanks to continued investment,” she concludes.
