Rising incidence of lung cancer among women and young people

The National Lung Cancer Observatory revealed on Tuesday growing trend the number of cases of lung cancer in womenwhat they already assume every fourth patientAnd the youthThis was stated by the coordinator of the Thoracic Tumors Unit of the ICO Badalona and the second vice-president of the Spanish Lung Cancer Group (GECP), Enric Carceneri, during the day. “Real Lung Cancer Data: Key to the Next Decade”.

Carseneri said the group aims to “expunge the myth that lung cancer is a disease of older people” because “we are increasingly seeing in consultations diagnoses at a younger age“. People with age from 50 to 60 years They already make up 30 percent and about 13.3 percent of diagnoses occur in people aged 40 to 50 years.

NATIONAL LUNG CANCER OBSERVATORY

GECP created the National Lung Cancer Observatory as a platform to analyze, study, reflect and disseminate information about the reality of the tumor with the highest mortality and morbidity in the country. The average patient profile is male smokers aged 65 years.– with the aim of facilitating the treatment and survival of this disease. In this regard, Carcereni stressed that “this allows us to present the data we currently have on the Spanish population, since most of the information we have comes from other countries.”

To this end, the GECP Thoracic Tumor Registry was launched in 2016, Over eight years, he managed to collect data on nearly 34,000 patients from 88 hospitals across the country.. According to Mariano Provencio, president of GECP and head of the oncology department at the Puerta de Hierro hospital in Madrid, the registry includes an average of 400 new patients per month, and this trend continues every month, for a total of 4,400 per year. “We are open to anyone who wants to participate,” he stressed.

The registry is the first national and unified database on this type of tumor and includes information on socio-demographic, clinical, molecular, genetic variables and treatment outcomes of patients treated in Spanish hospitals.. Provencio also explained that the findings of the Observatory can be “extrapolated to the entire population,” since the Registry’s data are compared with those of the National Statistics Institute (INE) and the Spanish Network of Cancer Registries (REDECAN).

During the day, Carcereni presented an X-ray of the current situation with lung cancer in Spain. Last year, 22,700 people died from lung cancer.which is the leading cause of death from tumors, according to INE.

In addition, it was noted that the leading tumor of the chest is non-small cell lung carcinoma (27,940 cases), followed by small cell lung carcinoma, which In 70 percent of cases it is diagnosed at late stages.. However, he stressed that the observatory also provides information on other, less common cancers, such as mesothelioma.

He singled out the “normalization” of smoking as a risk factor, which he pointed out as a society “We need to be a little bolder in our anti-smoking policies.“In this sense, the observatory’s X-ray indicates that tobacco is the main cause of this type of tumor. 40.5 percent of victims are regular smokers, and 46.5 percent are former smokers. Only 11.5 percent of lung cancer patients included in the registry admit to never having smoked.

In turn, the head of the medical oncology service of the University Hospital Dr. Balmiche Bartomeu Massuti: compared data on lung cancer with data on other common neoplasms.which are breast cancer, colon and rectal cancer, and prostate cancer.

As you noted, Lung cancer death rate ‘much higher’ than other cancerssince it is at 75 percent of its decline. Looking to the future, Massuti noted that the trend in Spain by 2040 will be an increase in morbidity by 34.7 percent and mortality to 37 percent. “In the next 20-25 years, half a million Spanish citizens will die of lung cancer,” he commented.

MORE ACCURATE DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT

The conference presented the Observatory’s data on the implementation of molecular determinations for More accurate diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer thanks to data from the Atlas projectsubstudy of the Thoracic Tumor Registry as a platform for NGS (next-generation sequencing) biomarker analysis of lung cancer.

As the GECP President explained, “compared to other countries, Spain represents a global positivity rate of close to 42 percent. observed in neighboring European countries. Similarly, the definition of at least one biomarker is similar to the German experience and real data from the United States,” he specified.

For Provencio: “Spanish hospitals have taken over and carried out an adequate level of molecular testing.comparable to other European countries and exceeding that of the United States. This demonstrates the strength of our national health care system with universal coverage and physician participation, despite the lack of guidelines or government organization in these areas. In this sense, 62.5 percent of patients analyzed were found to have some type of mutation, which allows them to personalize treatment..

RADON AND LUNG CANCER

Another application available at the Observatory is related to radon and lung cancer researchin collaboration with the Carlos III Health Institute. Provencio explained that detecting and mapping radon in different geographical areas of the country could contribute to public health.This will be the first study of radon in Spain related to a geographic population and linked to lung cancer.“, he added.

Finally, the day ended with a round table on the topic challenges and opportunities of pathology for the next decade. In it, the director of the Department of Medical and Scientific Affairs of Farmmaindustria, Arancha Sancho, highlighted the opportunities offered by the registry, since “it has an impact on all decisions taken at national level” and also “for measuring results. In addition, he said that “It is a source of knowledge and also a source of hypotheses that can lead to many directions of research.“I don’t just see an immediate effect, but rather I open up new possibilities.”

Meanwhile, the president of the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC), Ramon Reyes, called for the creation of registries of this type for all types of tumors.A national tumor registry should be created that takes into account the interests of patients.“, – he explained. For this, “political will and the political will of the autonomous communities are needed. If we do not have a registry of all or almost all tumors, then talking about equality of patients is nothing more than good wishes. This is “an example that we should take into account.”