More than a quarter of cancer cases in Girona women are breast

From the age of 25 years breast cancer It is more common in women and continues to spread until the age of seventy, at which point the incidence of it is equivalent to the incidence of colorectal cancer. Although breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women, it is not the cancer with the highest mortality rate; it has a high mortality rate. Better than average overall survival.

According to the Breast Unit Coordinator at Santa Caterina Hospital, Pedro Suarez-Pomarega, the breast cancer mortality rate, which had increased until the mid-1990s, has decreased significantly thanks to advances in diagnosis and treatment, especially with the implementation of Screening programs across the Mammogram. Specifically, 459 women suffered from breast cancer in 2021 in Health District of GironaThis number represents 28.1% of all cancer cases in women. Of these, 100 people lost their lives due to the disease, a number equivalent to 16.13% of all cancer deaths in women. It is estimated that during her lifetime, 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and 1 in 39 will die from it. “These data highlight the importance of early detection,” emphasizes Dr. Suarez Pumarija.

This is one of the conclusions reached yesterday at the third meeting of the breast units of the Girona Health District at the Salten Hospital. They met specifically More than a hundred professionals Medicine, nursing, health technicians as well as residents, from different specialties to exchange the experiences of different units in the region and advance the standardization of diagnostic and therapeutic standards to avoid discrepancies between units and thus improve the quality of care and lead to better health care for women with breast cancer.

Today he focused on the new treatment, which is systemic therapy (chemotherapy or hormonal therapy) that is performed before surgery to evaluate how the tumor responds and try to reduce its size and impact on the armpit area. “The goal is to achieve increasingly conservative surgical treatments“, said Dr. Suarez Pumarija. There were also several tables that discussed treatments adapted according to the type of tumor, immediate breast reconstruction according to the need, radiotherapy and surgery in the axillary area, among other aspects.

Since 2021, the Breast Unit at Santa Caterina Hospital has been certified as a Unit of Excellence by the Spanish Society of Breast Pathology and Breast Pathology (SESPM). It is a multidisciplinary unit consisting of nursing staff, radiographers and specialists from histopathology, gynecology, medical oncology, radiotherapy, radiology, nuclear medicine, plastic surgery and psycho-oncology services.

The unit serves the reference population of Girones and Selva interior. Suspected breast cancer cases are referred to Santa Caterina Hospital through the Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Programme, and once diagnosed, they are evaluated by an expert panel of breast diseases that meets weekly.