The diagnoses of multiple sclerosis are increasing each year in spain especially between people youthsbetween 20 and 40 years old, according to the coordinator of the Study Group of Demyelinating Diseases of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN)Ana Belén Caminero from Palencia (1963).
Caminero, currently head of the Neurology Section of the Ávila Assistance Complex, in which she coordinates the Demyelinating Diseases Unit, was elected at the beginning of 2023 for that position for the next two years, and among her objectives is the creation of a national registry of patients with multiple sclerosissince it currently does not exist and it has its complexities to get it up and running.
About two thousand new cases each year
He details in an interview that each year around 2,000 new cases of multiple sclerosisa chronic neurological disease that increasingly affects “more young people”.
In this sense, the neurologist draws attention to the fact that the “debut” of patients in this disease whose cause is unknown is increasingly earlier, standing out among people between 20 and 40 years of age.
In the global context, he points out that the prevalence of multiple sclerosis is increasing worldwideas in Spain, which has a “medium high” prevalence, when a few years ago it was low.
Improvement in treatments that prolong survival
The coordinator of the Study Group of Demyelinating Diseases of the SEN stresses that “the improvements in treatments” that are taking place in recent years, allow the survival of these patients “not to be excessively shortened.
Thus, he has pointed out that those who suffer from this ailment can live beyond the age of 60 with a “relatively good quality of life in 80 percent of cases.”
Rodríguez, newly elected coordinator of the Study Group of Demyelinating Diseases of the SEN She has a degree in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Valladolid, a specialist in Neurology from the La Paz Hospital in Madrid and a Master’s Degree in Neuroimmunology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
In his long career until he arrived at the Ávila Assistance Complex in 1993 and later, he has passed through Denver (United States), New York (United States) and Vancouver (Canada), as well as the Multiple Sclerosis Center of Catalonia (CEMCAT) , at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital.
As a specialist in multiple sclerosis, he emphasizes that in recent years “there has been evolved a lot in the treatments” of neurological diseases, since until the 20th century “diagnoses were only made, but few treatments”.
In this regard, Ana Belén Caminero acknowledges the “hatching” of treatments that are taking place in two areas of neurology such as stroke and multiple sclerosiswhich is managing to “improve the quality of life” of patients and “prolong their survival”.
The commitment to research comes from pharmaceutical companies
In this context, Caminero underlines the fact that the commitment to investigation by pharmaceutical companies and considers that it would be “desirable” for the different administrations to follow this path, something that happens more outside of Spain.
Regarding her election as coordinator of the Demyelinating Diseases Study Group of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN), Ana Belén Caminero points out that, among other missions, she must “look after the interests of patients”, so that “they are treated without inequity in the national territory”.
Likewise, you have toensure the interests of the group of neurologists” and collaborate with patient associations, being “the link between neurologists and health administration” and with European scientific societies, he summarizes.