World Cancer Day: Italy at the top in the treatment of cancer, but too many regional differences

In assisting cancer patients, Italy is now at the top in Europe, in line with the most advanced countries, such as France and Germany and much better than Great Britain. So much so that in the last 10 years the number of patients alive after the diagnosis of cancer has increased by 53%: they were two million 250 thousand in 2010, today they are 3 million 460 thousand. On the day of the 'World Day against Cancer' , Giordano Beretta, president of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (Aiom), however, does not want to insist on the merits, but rather to denounce what is still not working.
"There are still too many - says Beretta - the differences in our territory: from the accession and coverage of the screening still too low in the South, to the creation of regional leopard spot cancer networks, to the availability only in some more virtuous Regions of effective therapies and of tests capable of analyzing the molecular profile of the tumor ".
For example: "If the activation of breast cancer screening is 100% in Lombardy, where the membership of women between 50 and 69 years is 60% - says President Aiom - it happens that in some areas of the south with 20% activation only 20% of women join. In the first case - Beretta notes - out of 100 women are still 60 protected. In the second case they are only 4 ".
Another example is indicated by Paolo Ascierto, Director of the Unit of Oncology Melanoma and Oncological Immunotherapy of the Institute 'G. Pasale' of Naples , "the only one in Italy to offer the citizens of Campania affected by melanoma free of charge the combination of two molecules immunotherapy, nivolumab and ipilimumab, which especially for cases with asymptomatic brain metastases (about 40% of the total), has shown important results. Aifa has approved the therapy, but not its reimbursement. It costs about € 80 thousand year for two years. Only President De Luca in Italy has decided to make reimbursement possible. "
And what about Lombardy, which has been a forerunner on genomic tests establishing their reimbursement for women with early stage breast cancer, because tests can predict the aggressiveness of the disease and above all be decisive on the possibility of avoiding chemotherapy.
"Well right in Lombardy, where numerous patients from other regions refer - says Lucia Del Mastro, Head of the Brest Unit San Martino of Genoa - the test is denied to non-residents".
In Italy, in 2019, there were 371 thousand new diagnoses of cancer. "Compared to 2018, there has been a drop of about 2,000 cases - concludes President Beretta - to which the effectiveness of colorectal cancer screening has greatly contributed (where out of 53 thousand cases there was less than 8000) , l it is the only one that allows the identification and elimination of lesions at risk even before their transformation into a neoplasm ".