According to INCAN, the most common cancer in the country is breast cancer. File photo: Cuartoscuro
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MEXICO CITY
In Mexico, the relapses of recovering cancer patients were reduced from 60 percent to 20 percent, thanks to the use of state-of-the-art technology and protocols.
When commemorating the Day of the fight against cancer, specialists from the National Cancer Institute (INCAN) pointed out that the care of patients who were also infected with Covid was deferred, but not interrupted.
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Areli Eunice Hernández Alcántara, in charge of the Flow Cytometry and Cryopreservation Laboratory of said institute, explained in a videoconference that the Euro Flow scheme has been implemented for years and the use of flow cytometry equipment to review cell samples and evaluate progress in patients with various types of disease and progress in their recovery.
“At INCAN annually we receive around 1,500 samples of which, the one that occupies a higher percentage are minimal residual diseases, which is the process of monitoring the patient in which it is sought that there are no longer pathological cells of the disease “Hernández Alcántara stated.
In Mexico, cancer is the third leading cause of death. Annually 191 thousand people are diagnosed and 84 thousand Mexicans die from cancer each year.
The most frequent cancers in the country are breast, with 14.3 percent of the incidence of the disease and 8.2 of mortality associated with cancer; prostate (13.1 percent and 8.3 percent), colon (7.8 percent, 8.5 percent); thyroid (6.4 percent, 1.1 percent); lung (4.1 percent, 8.1 percent); cercivouterino (4.1 percent, 4.9 percent); while the various haematological diseases represent 13.8 percent of cases and 60 percent of cases among young people under 19 years of age.
Karla Adriana Espinosa Bautista, in charge of the lymphoblastic leukemia clinic at INCAN, established that until years ago there was a recurrence in 60 percent of cancer cases and thanks to the use of the latest generation of Flow Cytometry equipment, this recidivism has been reduced to 20 percent.
“Currently with this study I can identify before the patient relapses in a very serious hematological way any type of mild pathology that is found, minimal positive residual disease and at that moment start treatment, which includes target therapies that we have available, adjustments in chemotherapy, and above all, are patients that we can consider for bone marrow transplantation.
Already this can have an impact on patient survival and we have clearly reduced the risk of relapse from 60 percent to 30 or 20 percent, which is quite a lot, “said Espinosa Bautista.
The specialist also explained that the Covid-19 pandemic raised new ways of working with patients undergoing cancer treatments, because during chemotherapies the body’s defenses are reduced.
The number of consultations was temporarily reduced and those who required treatment were rescheduled.
There were even patients who arrived infected with Covid-19 and were asked to pass the quarantine time to continue their treatments.
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“Over time we realized that this was not going to be possible and that despite the fact that patients could run some risk with coronavirus infection, we would have to continue with cancer treatment.
“We made modifications to attend to the vast majority of patients (…) most of us were able to continue with the treatment as established in the protocol,” explained Espinosa Bautista.
He considered that it would be necessary to wait several years to see what the impact of the coronavirus was not only on oncological diseases, but on other chronic degenerative diseases and their psychological consequences in patients.
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