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.
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