2024-02-02 23:22:05
Ramón Reyes presides over the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC). This training biochemist He joined the Scientific Foundation as a trustee in 2016 and very quickly perceived the enormous contribution of the AECC on all fronts of the fight against cancer and the enormous work it carries out.
Reyes He has developed his professional career in three areas. The first years, between research at the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center and teaching, as an adjunct professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He then joined the pharmaceutical industry, where he assumed various responsibilities.
The AECC that Reyes presides has 670,000 members and with the funds it raises it finances a wide range of activities to care for patients and their environment. The work of this group is essential to advance what World Cancer Day is commemorated.
Ask- This year, what is the main demand of the AECC?
Answer- We ask for help from social actors to reduce the impact of the disease on the working lives of patients and survivors of this disease. The great increase in survival from cancer, which now reaches 60%, means that there are currently 2.2 million people who need to reintegrate into working life and be treated on an equal basis.
P.- Cancer is the second cause of death in Spain after cardiovascular pathologies. Is it still a hugely stigmatized disease?
R.- Yes, because it is avoided naming it. In addition, she is doubly stigmatized, both verbally and socially, by what happens to patients in the workplace.
P.- What problems are those affected forced to face in their work environments?
R.- First, they would have to adapt their positions to the times in which they are going through the illness. And then, upon returning, many find incomprehension of their new situation. They can be 100% free of sequelae, even legally, thanks to oncological forgetfulness, but many suffer from that stigma. We have to avoid it and we ask for the collaboration of social actors so that 28% of these people stop losing their jobs. Or in the best case scenario, they would suffer a 25% cut in their payroll.
P.- What does the oncological forgetfulness that you mentioned consist of?
R.- It is a recent legislative achievement whereby those who have had cancer and are free of the disease after five years no longer have the obligation to declare it in their financial transactions.
P.- Does a person’s life change a lot after having overcome cancer?
R.- A lot, because after a cataclysm of this magnitude in the foundations of the person, the family and their environment, many rethink a lot of things. They see that life is finite and feel the need to do something, because normally, when you suffer from cancer, you receive help from others. Added to this is that other times, as I explained before, it is not possible to continue working life in the same way, so many people end up reorienting themselves.
P.- What does it mean to suffer from cancer in Spain today?
R.- It is still not an easy situation, but there have been great advances in therapies and therapeutic approaches. Thanks to research and prevention, we have a survival rate of the disease in men and women of 60%. It is a bad lottery number, which will hit one in two men and one in three women, but much less dramatic than it was half a century ago.
P.- Could it disappear in the short term?
R.- Cancer will continue to exist, as a disease of the genome linked to age and the duplication that occurs daily in the 30 billion cells of our body. In this process, errors occur in machinery that breaks down over time, which is why cancer appears more after the age of 60, in weaker immune systems or because some external agent has caused it.
P.- Have there been improvements in the outlook for some types of cancer in recent years?
R.- In certain cancers the impact of immunotherapy has been spectacular. For example, in melanomas, which were a deadly cancer and are now treated with immunotherapy, obtaining a survival rate of over 90%. Other examples are prostate and breast. The latter already exceeds 80% survival.
P.- In what position is Spain in terms of cancer research?
R.- We have a very competitive healthcare network, with oncologists within the first quartile of excellence. We are the second country in the world in oncology clinical trials, after the United States. Being sick with cancer is not lucky, but the paradigm has changed and will continue to change even more in the future.
P.- What differences do patients find when treating themselves depending on where they live?
R.- We work to ensure that all people have access to everything. The European Union recommends that there be at least one comprehensive cancer center in each country, where different types of cancer can be treated. Ours is at the Vall d’Hebron Hospital, in Barcelona, integrated into the Catalan Institute of Oncology.
P.- Have there been any notable advances in recent times in terms of research and treatment of the disease?
R.- Indeed. Cancer has two levels: on the one hand there is basic research, which consists of understanding the disease molecularly, which affects all tumors. And that investigation is, later, like a swamp that grows. In global research we are still far from properly addressing it as a country, despite the fact that this is what allows us to address the bloodiest cancers, such as breast cancer at the time, which affected young women in many cases. Or childhood cancers. In a house on fire, the fire is stopped immediately. Afterwards, it is necessary to expand our knowledge of the molecular bases of the disease, which in reality includes 200 or 300 different pathologies.
P.- Are you concerned about changing trends such as the increasing incidence of colon cancer among the younger population?
R.- Yes, it is due to lifestyle and environmental issues. We promote prevention, early diagnosis and research. We have to tackle smoking more strongly to achieve the first tobacco-free generation by 2040 and thus comply with the European Union guidelines. Allowing people who smoke to first access things that are perceived as less harmful, in the case of smokeless tobacco, which is just as harmful, is brutally perverse.
P.- What can those Spaniards who are considering collaborating with the AECC do?
R.- If they have university or scientific training, they can become volunteers for science and develop awareness work in schools. We also have accompaniment people who free the relatives of the sick, as do our 34,000 volunteers. Help in fundraising activities and dissemination of our work is also very welcome. We do everything with the goal that all people with cancer, regardless of where they are and their personal conditions, have the same opportunities in terms of prevention, care, treatment and access to research results.
P.- He has recently been elected president of the European Cancer League (ECL). What does that designation imply?
R.- This group brings together 32 associations from 27 countries and works to promote the European Plan against Cancer in all those places. That, in turn, means guaranteeing equal access to plans and treatments and improving the lives of patients. It is a platform for all European countries to collaborate on prevention, tobacco control, access to medicines, patient support and creating opportunities to advocate for these issues at community level. It has an office with a dozen people in the European Parliament and is a totally strategic body. Portugal is the outgoing country of the ECL presidency and we take up the baton with determination.
#overcome #cancer #return #working #lives