We take a look at some of the findings that emerged from this year's European Society for Medical Oncology conference in Barcelona. Some 30,000 people attended the forum to hear what advances doctors and researchers have made in the fight against cancer.
This Entre Nous aired on September 18, 2024.A programme produced by Amanda Alexander, Marina Pajovic and Georgina Robertson.
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This Entre Nous aired on September 18, 2024.A programme produced by Amanda Alexander, Marina Pajovic and Georgina Robertson.
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
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NewsTranscript
00:00Well, according to the World Health Organization, there are some 20 million cancer diagnoses
00:05every year and nearly 10 million deaths worldwide from cancer.
00:09Yet, at the same time, medical advances to combat it are also charging ahead.
00:13And we're going to talk more about this with Solange Bougin, who joins me now in the studio.
00:18Hi, Solange.
00:19Hi, Amy.
00:20So many new findings were presented this week at a conference that was on in Barcelona.
00:23Yeah, the European Society for Medical Oncology, or ESMO.
00:28It has concluded its five-day conference.
00:31It was held in Barcelona this year, and it is one of the major global medical conferences
00:37with over 30,000 people attending.
00:40So it's come actually a long way, considering it started in 1975 with around 100 doctors.
00:46Now, it is a key place for researchers and oncologists to present their findings.
00:52So some 2,200 studies were presented from September 13th to September 17th.
00:58The conference's prominence is, of course, an indicator of how cancer has become a global
01:02burden with one in five being diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes.
01:07So what were the key takeaways?
01:08Well, some of them are incredibly positive, like the effectiveness of immunotherapy before
01:12surgery rather than just after surgery.
01:15But before we get into all of that, we need to do a quick recap of the kind of results
01:20that were presented at the conference's nearly 300 sessions.
01:24They are papers, presentations of research, and clinical trial findings.
01:28Many of these results are tentative, depending on the kind and the phase of the clinical
01:33trial.
01:34So to recap the basic research method here, there are traditionally four main phases to
01:39these trials, if all goes well, with a larger number of people in each phase of the trial.
01:46A first phase clinical trial asks the question, is this a new treatment or a new drug?
01:52Is it safe?
01:53And what effect does it have on the body?
01:55Also at what dose?
01:56The second phase asks the effectiveness question.
01:59Does the treatment work?
02:01Does the cancer get smaller or go away?
02:03Do people live longer?
02:04The third phase compares the tested treatment with others that are already available.
02:09It's often here that placebos are sometimes used.
02:12Side effects are also watched closely here, as there are often hundreds of people in phase
02:16three trials.
02:18After phase three, the approval is often sent out towards regulators like the FDA, like
02:24the EMA.
02:26And then there's phase four.
02:27It comes after the marketing of the drug when researchers want to find out if there's actually
02:32anything else that they need to know about the drug, about its safety long term.
02:36So tell us a bit more about some of the key findings at this year's ESMO.
02:39Well, in regard to breast cancer, which is the number one cancer among women in France
02:44with 60,000 new cases every year, a number of findings were presented.
02:49One study found that women who had cancer and then breastfed, they did not have a higher
02:54chance of recurrence, despite hormonal fluctuations that happen when you breastfeed.
02:59Another breast cancer one, this one actually could even be applied quickly or even immediately
03:04compared to some of the other clinical trials that are, again, in their early stages.
03:09The Institut Gustave Roussi proved scientifically that 15 sessions of radiation at higher doses
03:15for just three weeks, while they were just as efficient as 25 sessions over five weeks.
03:21That's potentially huge for women who want to return to their normal lives after treatment.
03:25The downside here is that some researchers fear that the hospitals actually will be wary
03:28of cutting back and applying these new recommendations.
03:32The firm also presented a huge artificial intelligence algorithm, which was trained
03:38on billions of images of tumors of some 30,000 patients.
03:42And it says that the tech can now trace anomalies that the human eye cannot.
03:46Many of the studies were also about immunotherapy, which trains the immune system to fight cancer
03:51cells.
03:52Now, one study found that if you introduce immunotherapy before surgery, then survival
03:57rates will increase on certain breast cancers, bladder cancers, and cervical cancers.
04:02In some cases even, immunotherapy even helps save the affected organs, like with certain
04:08rectal cancers.
04:09Now, the immunotherapy made the cancer, in those cases, the immunotherapy made the cancers
04:13vanish entirely, which actually made a surgery unnecessary.
04:17Such promising results could not only save lives, make recovery easier, but it is also,
04:23of course, boosting interest in immunotherapy drugs, new ones, but also ones that are on
04:28the market currently, like Merck's Keytruda MSD, which already is the highest selling
04:33drug in the world, bringing in some $25 billion in revenue last year.
04:38And so, Lange, there's long been a hope of eventually getting a cancer vaccine.
04:43Are we any closer to that at this point?
04:45We are, but we are not there yet.
04:47Moderna presented its mRNA cancer vaccine at the conference.
04:51But again, this was just a phase one trial.
04:54So it's still in the, is this safe questioning phase.
04:58But the company said that there are promising signs that their vaccine did trigger cancer-killing
05:03cells, or it may be able to train the immune system to fight, a person's immune system
05:09to fight those cancer cells in tumors.
05:11But again, the number of people tested is quite small, just 19 people.
05:16The vaccines were tailored to them specifically.
05:19So steady, significant steps, but they are first steps nonetheless towards combating
05:24cancer.
05:25Good to hear that there's progress there.
05:26Thank you so much for that, Solange.
05:27Solange.
05:28Mouchel.