Logroño, (EFE).- The Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) in La Rioja is committed to healthy lifestyle habits to prevent this disease and promote research to achieve survival of 70 percent of patients diagnosed by 2030. .
The president of this entity, Elena Eguizábal, reported this Thursday, in statements to journalists, about the #TodosContraElCáncer campaign, on the occasion of tomorrow’s celebration of World Cancer Day.
For this, an information table has been set up in the lobby of the San Pedro de Logroño University Hospital, in an act that was also attended by the Minister of Health of the Government of La Rioja, María Somalo, the head of Medical Oncology, Martina Alonso, and the researcher of the Oncology area of the Biomedical Research Center of La Rioja (CIBIR) Alfredo Martínez.
They have explained that cancer will affect one in two people in 2030, which means one in two men and one in three women in that year, when some 2,327 people in La Rioja are expected to be diagnosed with this disease.
Eguizábal has opted to “make visible” this disease, which is “the main health problem in the world, Spain and also La Rioja”, for which the #TodosContraElCáncer campaign aims to “promote a social movement to fight cancer”.
He specified that, in 2022, there were 280,000 cancer diagnoses in all of Spain, some 2,080 in La Rioja, with a five-year survival of 60%.
More research grants
In order to achieve a cure of 70% of the cases in 2030, research must be promoted, he stressed, for which he has requested more aid to finance new projects.
“The AECC is the main private entity that carries out research against cancer in Spain”, with 104 million euros allocated to 565 projects, in which more than a thousand researchers participate, he added.
In La Rioja, thanks to the support of the institutions and the funds raised in the women’s race, six cancer research grants can currently be financed: four of them are pre-doctoral (two at CIBIR and another two at the University of La Rioja), another postdoctoral fellowship on colon cancer, and joint work between the San Pedro Hospital and CIBIR.
In this sense, Martínez specified that the new techniques applied to cure cancer, such as immunotherapy and CART-T cell therapy, have been achieved thanks to research.
This researcher, who is part of the technical committee of the AECC in La Rioja, recalled that all the money collected in the costs of this entity is dedicated to research to ensure that all new therapies can be “applied as soon as possible.”
Among the projects that are being developed in La Rioja, he has cited research to detect pancreatic cancer early, which is the one with the lowest survival rate.
New screenings
Somalo, who has announced the start-up in a month of a new screening for the early detection of lung cancer, has thanked the AECC for all the work it does for patients, their families and the important work to support research.
He has insisted on the prevention of cancer with healthy lifestyle habits, through diet and physical exercise, and avoiding the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and other harmful substances.
The Minister of Health has encouraged the entire population to participate in screening to detect cervical, colon and breast cancer, to which lung cancer will be added, which “allow the detection of the disease at an early stage and save lives.”
For his part, Alonso has verified, according to data from the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology, cancer survival has doubled in the last 40 years, thanks to increased research, screening and the decrease in tobacco consumption.
He has also stressed the importance of healthy lifestyle habits to prevent cancer, since “simultaneous consumption of tobacco and alcohol multiplies the risk of suffering from this disease by 30”. EFE
