A new research reality that opens up important treatment scenarios and hopes of recovery for cancer patients will come to life at the A. Gemelli IRCCS University Hospital in Rome, one of the most important Italian cancer centres. The Comprehensive Cancer Center will be the site of structured basic and translational cancer research combined with an integrated portfolio of services and benefits that embrace the patient's entire clinical-care pathway.
The goal is to offer increasingly effective and personalized assistance, aimed at accompanying and taking the patient by the hand with cancer in all phases of his diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitation process.
The A. Gemelli IRCCS University Hospital is one of the leading Italian cancer centers and is a member of the Alliance Against Cancer, the network which includes all the national scientific hospitalization and treatment institutes (IRCCS) dedicated to the treatment and research against cancer. The importance of the structure that starts not only from history is testified by the numbers: 2018 cancer patients were assisted at the Gemelli in 48.500more than 22.000 hospitalizations, 12.600 oncological surgery operations, more than 26.000 chemotherapies, 35.000 radiotherapy sessions were performed and over 1 million oncological services were provided, an activity that involved all the Departments operating within the Gemelli Foundation.
The world of entertainment intervenes to support this important programme, which on Tuesday 16 April at 20.30 in the Sala Sinopoli of the Auditorium Parco della Musica of Rome will give life to an event under the slogan “With the Gemini for life. The new Cancer Center”, aimed at raising awareness of the Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The following have already assured their participation in the event, which will be conducted by Mara Venier and Alberto Matano: Renzo Arbore, Simone Cristicchi, Enrico Nigiotti, Marco Masini, Gigi D'Alessio, Alexia, the tenor Cristian Ricci, the violinist and composer Alessandro Fourth, Fausto Leali, Davide De Marinis, Red Canzian with Jessica Morlacchi, Simona Izzo, Ricky Tognazzi and Flavio Insinna.
“The neoplastic diseases, which we generically bring together under the definition of cancer – warns prof. Giampaolo Tortora, director of Medical Oncology and now also of the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Gemelli Polyclinic, called to Rome from Verona where he was Director of the Department of Oncology, including both the GB Rossi-Borgo Polyclinic in Rome and the Maggiore Civil Hospital in Borgo Trento, known throughout the world for the high level of specialization achieved above all in pancreatic neoplasms – from 2020 they will become the leading cause of death in the Western world and in industrialized countries. Despite the fact that the diagnosis of the disease often occurs at an advanced stage, thanks to research, today we are able to heal over 50% of cancer patients and treat, with good prospects of survival, a further 20% of the sick".
Fortunately, cancer research in recent times has been characterized by an incessant succession of new discoveries and new challenges posed by cancer cells, in a sort of pursuit between the enormous ability to adapt and escape the controls of cancer cells and the development of new strategies to identify evasion mechanisms and block them.
"Cancers are smart but we are learning many of their tricks and we are making great strides to deal with them more effectively and to make our bodies more resistant to their attack. It is with this spirit that we worked on the establishment of the "Cancer Center" of the Gemelli Polyclinic - continues prof. Tortora – with the aim of optimizing a structure that combines assistance and research and unite and coordinate the diagnostic and treatment pathways already present at Gemelli, because a lot of oncology is already done here: in 2018 we treated over 48 cancer patients, a very high number, comparable to the largest cancer institutes. And the year before, 46.500 patients had been assisted, demonstrating that Il Gemelli has a great vocation for oncology”.
“We start off having already a great wealth of knowledge behind us: in recent years – continues Tortora – enormous progress has been made in understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern the growth of cancer cells, their metastatic dissemination and the 'microenvironment' that surrounds cancer cells and protects them from drugs and immune system attack. We also discovered that cancer cells progressively accumulate mutations in their DNA. In parallel, in an ongoing challenge, pharmacological research has synthesized drugs with a molecular target, capable of targeting the specific mutations identified. Subsequently we learned that, due to the continuous mutations, the cells that make up a tumor mass, both in the primary tumor and in its metastases, are very different from each other, a characteristic known as 'tumor heterogeneity'. This heterogeneity can lead to resistance to therapy with targeted drugs”.
"We are slowly approaching the finish line – continues Tortora – There have been two or three focal moments of progress in recent decades and what we are experiencing now with immunotherapy is very solid. The feeling is that with immunotherapy a different path has been taken. Even if it shouldn't deceive, because it's not for everyone: in cases where it works, however, patients react well and the results last for a long time”.
The future will therefore be the identification and selection of patients with specific tumor characteristics and the use of the various weapons available, chemotherapy, drugs with a molecular target, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, in a combined and integrated way. “A true personalization of the treatment – remarks Tortora – which today goes under the name of precision medicine”. According to the specialist, “however, it would be very simplistic to think that the personalization of therapy develops only in the context of a diagnostic and therapeutic biotechnological dimension. The human dimension of the patient must be considered in its entirety, with all its innumerable psychological, cultural, social and spiritual components, which must be recognized and alleviated, also in consideration of the fact that they can influence the therapeutic process, from diagnosis to accompaniment to end of life".
