Of Vera Martinella
The results of a new large investigation indicate that, with the diagnosis at the first stage, after 12 months patients return to having the same life expectancy as those who have never been ill. Screening checks are essential
Are the most common tumors in the Italian population: breast cancer is the most frequent of all, with around 55,900 new cases diagnosed in 2023 (around 500 of which are among males), followed by colorectal cancer with 50,500 new diagnoses.
The good news, which comes from just one study published in the scientific journal International Journal of Canceris that 99% of women with breast cancer and the 92% of patients with colorectal cancer has a similar life expectancy to someone who has not been ill if the neoplasm is detected in initial stage. The results of this research have a double significance. On the one hand, they help answer the questions that all people ask themselves when they receive an oncological diagnosis: “Will I get well?”, “When can I consider myself out of danger?”. On the other hand, they reiterate and demonstrate, with numbers in hand, the importance of undergoing screening checks to discover the presence of a neoplasm in the early stages, when it is small in size, without metastases and the chances of recovery are much higher.
Research and the chances of recovery
The investigation, coordinated by the IRCCS Oncological Reference Center (CRO) of Aviano and by the Azienda Zero of the Veneto Region, evaluated the information coming from 31 Italian tumor registries and estimated numerous healing indicators by disease stage after diagnosis of breast and colorectal cancer. «It emerged that, at the time of diagnosis, the probability of recovery for women with breast cancer goes from 99% for tumors discovered at the first stage (which represent over half of the diagnoses) to 36% when the disease presents in more advanced stages (about 10% of new cases per year). Similar differences emerged for people with colorectal cancer – he explains Luigino Dal Maso, CRO researcher and coordinator of the study –. Among patients alive 10 years after being diagnosed with breast cancer, the risk of the disease returning is about 5%. Already 5 years after the diagnosis of colorectal cancer, the risk of death due to cancer becomes less than 3%, and becomes practically zero after 10 years.”
Who can consider themselves healed
Three and a half million Italians live after a cancer diagnosisbut among them only about a million can be considered cured because they have a “negligible” risk of dying from cancer and, concretely, a life expectancy that is the same as that of healthy people of the same sex and age. Many scientific studies have been done in recent years to define the concept of healing (which is also at the center of the Law on the right to be forgotten, approved last December 2023) and there are very specific parameters shared at an international level that vary based on many factors, first of all the type of cancer in question and the time elapsed since diagnosis The risk of death from cancer is highest in the first years after diagnosis and then progressively decreases. «The study just published shows us for the first time the recovery indicators by disease stage and provides crucial information for oncology, research and public health» he comments Diego Serraino of the Aviano CRO.
The usefulness of screening
«Based on the results of the research, we estimate that there are approximately 900 thousand women living today after breast cancer, over 3% of all women living in Italy – she says Stefano Guzzinati, manager of Azienda Zero of the Veneto Region and co-responsible for the study – often for many years after diagnosis. Our indicators were measured thanks to data collected by 31 cancer registries (covering half of the Italian population) on almost one million patients, starting from 1978 until 2017 and followed for at least 15 years». There newly published research has been part of an active collaboration for over 15 years thanks to the support of the Italian Association for Cancer Research (Airc), the Italian Association of Cancer Registries (Airtum) and the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Iss). The results reinforce what has already been demonstrated several times: carry out the checks for early diagnosis (mammography, tests for occult blood in the stool and Pap test or HPV-DNA test), which are also offered free of charge by the NHS in our country for people in the age group most at risk of getting ill, significantly reduce both the risk of developing cancer and dying from it.
How the risk of dying decreases over time
«The analyzes presented also show the number of years necessary for the risk of dying from cancer to become clinically negligible – he comments Silvia Francisci, researcher at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità –. Overall, considering all disease stages, it is less than 10 years after diagnosis for women aged 45-64 with breast cancer and approx 12 years if the disease occurs under 45 and at 65-74 years of age. It boils down to one year after the diagnosis of first or second stage breast cancer and at an age of less than 65 years, while it exceeds 10 years in the case of more advanced stages. For patients with First stage colorectal cancer recovery time is one year, while it takes about 8 years for all the other more advanced stages.” «The study is part of a line of research which recently showed that around 23.5 million Europeans, out of a population of 500 million, live after a cancer diagnosis – he adds Roberta De Angelis, researcher of theHigher Institute of Health, coordinator of the European study -. The results were obtained in Italy are similar to those that have emerged in other countries of comparable socio-economic level and indicate that those living long after cancer are a continuously increasing population in Europe, due to both aging and improved survival.”
Right to be forgotten: the consequences for former patients
«For cancer patients, knowing the probability of being cured upon diagnosis and knowing that the vast majority of people diagnosed with early-stage cancer are destined to be cured in a few years represent very important information also regarding access to the right to 'oncological oblivion just introduced into our system by Law 193/2023 – he concludes Elisabetta Iannelli, Secretary General of the Italian Federation of Volunteer Associations in Oncology (Favo) -. The results of the study published in the International Journal of Cancer provide an important piece useful for patients to regain control of their lives and return to a condition of normality. In particular, they are of great importance for women who until now have not been able to benefit from oncological oblivion in a short time (those who have had a first or second stage tumor considered cured one year after diagnosis). The implementing decrees provided for by the law on the right to be forgotten oncology will have to take this study into account in order to provide recovery times that are much shorter than the 10 years from the end of the therapies, as currently established by the law”.
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