The effect of pollution is behind up to 5% of cancers in Europe

Up to 5% of cancer cases currently recorded in the EU “can be attributed to the effect of pollution,” Jean-Yves Blay, director of Public Health Policies at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), told this medium. , a scientific organization that is holding its annual conference in Madrid until Tuesday the 24th.

Logically, “the most related tumors are those of the lung, others located in the airway, as well as breast cancer” – a cancer for which ESMO has published new data in this sense -, says Blay, although it is not ruled out that in other tumors , such as bladder or kidney, among others, some type of association could be established”.

A recent EU report, which analyzes the circumstances of cancer in all member countries and also compares them with each of the countries and with the average, indicates that by 2030 three million new cancer diagnoses are expected in the EU and In Spain, 11% of them, the Spanish Andrés Cervantes, president of ESMO, told this medium.

But in addition, “330,000 Spanish citizens will be diagnosed with cancer in 2023, which means that we must make a significant effort and be prepared for this other 'pandemic'.”

At the opening of the ESMO congress, in which a record number of 31,000 people registered – no other ESMO congress had exceeded 29,000 – special emphasis was placed on the effects of pollution on the risk of developing cancer..

Reveal more factors involved

While the prevalence of lung cancer, overall, has experienced a decrease in recent years, there is a group in which an increase is observed: non-smoking women over 60 years of age, according to Cervantes.. In this sense, the professionals of this scientific society have outlined lines of work to reveal what factors could be exerting a negative influence: pollution, but also other unspecified factors, such as the presence of inhaled microplastics, for example..

For Silke Gillessen, scientific director of ESMO2023, pollution, in addition to having an impact on cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, plays a role in cancer.. “We already have data on lung cancer and, more recently, on breast and lung cancer in non-smoking women over 60 years of age”. For this reason, ESMO is going to focus its strategies more on prevention, since, unlike what happens with hereditary cancer, pollution is a modulable factor.”.

In the future, and according to Blay, “the effects of pollution will show clear repercussions”. Therefore, in addition to promoting professional strategies, strengthening health systems and patients and facilitating equal access to oncological drugs, “we will work on prevention with the aim of identifying more carcinogens”.

Starting today, the professionals participating in ESMO will announce the therapeutic developments that have recently occurred.. Specifically, and according to Cervantes, there are fourteen diseases that, based on the data presented, will have a new treatment that improves the previous one.”

Fourteen new indications for medications; Some are already known, but in diseases where their usefulness had not yet been demonstrated.. “This means a change in clinical practice,” says the president of SEOM. Clear examples in different molecular groups of lung, cervical, colon, esophagogastric, prostate, bladder and medullary thyroid cancer, among others.

Gillessen has reviewed the most notable developments: selective inhibitors and new monoclonal antibodies for lung cancer in non-smokers, as well as LB12 conjugated antibodies, with clinical benefits that would also cover non-metastatic tumors..

What will be the most notable therapeutic advances?

In gynecological endometrial tumors, the presence of immunotherapeutics, as well as conjugated antibodies, has been highlighted.. In the cervix, specifically, he has pointed out the usefulness of immunotherapy plus radiotherapy; immunoradiation, a fact that “can change clinical practice”.

In colorectal, another of the large tumor groups, Cervantes has referred to specific combinations with KRAS inhibitors, mainly for lesions with KRAS12 mutations, and other conjugated antibodies, molecules that also appear positively in urological cancers such as bladder cancer, for example..