Yesterday, an initiative promoted by to raise awareness in society about an unknown, incurable disease, with a median overall survival of around 3 years, and a very low 5-year survival rate, was presented in the Congress of Deputies.
In the event, which included important personalities from medicine, pharmacology, psychology, management and politics, a 10-point manifesto prepared by a prestigious Coalition of Experts was presented “for the visibility of the needs of women with metastatic triple negative breast cancer.
In addition, this type of aggressive tumor is especially common in young women, to the point that most patients are under 50 years of age.
From the pink bow to the black bow
Talk about breast cancer it is to speak of the most frequent tumor in women. According to data from the , this year more than 34,000 cases will be diagnosed. But it is a disease that, thanks to research, has a very good prognosis.
In Spain, the survival rate of is 82.8% at five years. And the most encouraging data is that it exceeds 99% in those patients who have been diagnosed exclusively with a tumor in the breast.
Hence its color is pink and its reality is identified with a bow.
But not all breast cancer is so hopeful. There is a type, almost unknown, which is incurable, “wild” and almost always fatal.
It is metastatic triple negative breast cancer.
A type of tumor that has already become the Spanish, under 50 years.
Therefore, coinciding with the World Metastatic Breast Cancer Daywhich is celebrated on October 13, the Coalition of Experts (formed by oncologists, nurses, psycho-oncologists, pharmacists, managers, journalists, patients, politicians and opinion leaders) has presented a manifesto this Thursday in the Congress of Deputies in a beneficial initiative promoted by the pharmaceutical company Gilead.
Metastatic triple negative breast cancer: what is it and what is its treatment?
As he explains to this portal the Dr. Marta Santiesteban, Oncologist at the Clínica Universidad Navarra, “triple negative breast cancer is the worst of the breast tumors because, as its name suggests, it does not express any of the three usual receptors, which are estrogen, progesterone and the protein HER2”.
And that greatly complicates the effectiveness of any treatment.
It explained it very clearly oncologist and vice president of Eva Ciruelosby stating that:
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“The triple negative name already makes it clear that it is a cancer that we know what it is not, but we do not know what it is. And as long as we do not know, we will have less chance of progressing.”
This means that it is a disease with limited therapeutic opportunities, which makes it a pending medical issue and a social debt to the women who suffer from it, since it has not identified biomarkers that could be potential therapeutic targets.
Until a few years ago, the exclusive treatment for these patients was chemotherapy, but in addition to not guaranteeing the results “it has a lot of added toxicity” both physical and mental.
In any case, and despite being a breast cancer that is more resistant to treatments, there is hope that it will respond to immune therapies, as the oncology specialist points out.
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“The immunotherapyboth pharmacological and cellular (cells of the individual himself, which are stimulated ex vivo, enriched and inoculated again in the patient himself), have been incorporated into the therapeutic scenario”.
“We only ask for life, but we don’t have time”
There are also drugs approved by the European Medicines Agency and that are commonly used in countries of the European Union. But in Spain they are not yet financed by social security, so most patients do not have access to them.
And that was one of the great demands in which, sometimes moved until her voice broke, the president of the Pilar Fernandez:
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“We only ask for life, but we don’t have time. In other countries, patients can benefit from drugs that are giving results, but we cannot because here we still do not approve their financing. They are only available to those who can. And That is not equity. Because even though they are very expensive, it has been shown that they have great benefits, and yet their use is so regulated that we do not have access.”
Faced with this just demand, as was recognized by two former health ministers, Ana Pastor (PP) and Trinidad Jiménez (PSOE), we cannot forget that metastatic triple negative breast cancer is much more serious and has a shorter life expectancy.
Because to improve survival from breast cancer, surgical intervention may be considered, which includes partial or complete removal of one or both breasts. But in this type of cancer, mastectomy does not work either.
The poor prognosis is such that only 11% of women with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer survive five years after diagnosis.
In Spain, in 2020, 6,621 women died from this disease, and now there are more than 5,000 diagnosed patients, which represents between 12-15% of all breast cancers in our country.
First cause of death in young people
It is a more frequent type of tumor in patients under 50 years of age and has a much higher risk of recurrence and mortality than breast cancers with positive hormone receptors or HER2 overexpression (which means that it does respond to conventional treatments).
As the person responsible for giving voice to all these patients insists, Pilar Fernandez:
- “Metastatic triple negative breast cancer claims the lives of young women and their families. It’s not a pink ribbon cancer, it’s a black ribbon cancer. We urgently need help.”
Since the creation of this association that brings together patients diagnosed with this type of tumor:
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