(ANSA) – BARCELONA, 13 SEPTEMBER – More research, focusing on young people, strengthening prevention and giving patients an ever greater voice. This is the ‘roadmap’ of Italian-led European oncology for the coming years. The one indicating the objectives and priorities is Giuseppe Curigliano, the new president-elect of the European Society of Clinical Oncology (ESMO), whose congress opens today in Barcelona.
“My goal – Curigliano explains to ANSA – is first of all to invest a lot to strengthen the relationship between basic research and clinical research so that we can better understand how some drugs work, what the toxicity mechanisms are and therefore also intervene to further personalize the treatments for our patients”.
And again: “Another area of interest that I will try to develop is to give voice to patients. Often in clinical trials we see the results only from a medical point of view, but we never go to see what patients think about those data and the safety profiles”. Another goal, he continues, “is to aim for a massive investment in young oncologists: we must try to ensure leadership in European oncology by investing in young specialists and supporting them in their career progression by making more funds available to increase research grants”. And if in the future we will have more and more drugs available, the real challenge remains that of prevention: “I believe that we will have more and more drugs that will have a substantial impact on survival and more and more tools will arrive in the clinic to control tumors and to cure more patients, however – warns Curigliano – I think that the biggest challenge is to start investing much more in primary prevention. That is, we need to educate about health from pediatric age, from children to elementary school, creating differentiated educational paths: some for the general population, others for subjects at high risk of developing a tumor such as obese people and smokers. We need to build personalized screening paths and as Esmo we will aim to strengthen primary prevention”. With respect to Italy, the Esmo president-elect highlights a serious criticality: “Italy remains the last European country in the approval processes for clinical trials and it is therefore essential to create faster paths in the approval of trials, which save the NHS and give patients the opportunity to access innovative treatments that are not yet available. The institutions – he warns – must seriously reflect, because you cannot always be at the bottom of the list in research”. And there are many new developments, the result of international research, that will be presented at the Esmo congress. “Studies are presented that change clinical practice in neoplasms in which there had been no real progress for decades, such as that of the locally advanced uterine cervix – he explains – and a lot of space is reserved for immunotherapy in various tumors, from melanoma to gynecological, breast and bladder tumors. Without forgetting drug-conjugated antibodies that are highly selective for tumor cells, minimizing damage to surrounding healthy cells and increasing the effectiveness of the treatment”. Finally, the role of artificial intelligence in molecular diagnostics and therapies is also explored, “to identify – he concludes – the mechanisms of resistance to treatments and offer new options”. (ANSA).
2024-09-14 00:42:44