- You can change the clinical and therapeutic plan in up to 40% of cases
- The objective of this pilot project, unique in Spain, is to personalize healthcare to the maximum by applying precision medicine: the right treatment, at the right time, for each patient
- The Pathology coordinator, Dr. Laia Bernet, explains that this previous genetic study represents a great advance since it is usually carried out after surgery
Valencia, July 19 of 2021- The Breast Area of the Ribera healthcare group has revolutionized the diagnosis of breast cancer by launching a pilot project, unique in Spain, to carry out the genetic signature in the initial biopsy, in the tissue on which the cancer diagnosis is made. Until now, this study was performed on tissue from surgical removal, which is the usual procedure. The project has been organized to obtain the results in record time, approximately 48 hours, and not the usual 15 days in this type of genetic study.
"The information obtained from the genetic study with two tests, the 70-gene test to assess the possible benefit of chemotherapy and the 80-gene test (BluePrint) to define the molecular subtype of the tumor, is key to the clinical and surgical plan of each patient," explains the group's Pathology coordinator, Dr. Laia Bernet, who points out that "the information provided can change this therapeutic plan in up to 40% of cases." “It represents a great advance at all levels”, she adds.
The objective of this pilot project, unique in Spain, is to personalize health care to the maximum, practicing precision medicine, that is, the appropriate treatment, at the precise moment, for each patient. Dr. Bernet assures that the genetic signature "provides critical information in a certain group of patients, to decide whether or not they will need treatment with chemotherapy, making it possible to avoid the toxicity inherent to said treatment in patients in whom it does not provide benefit". “With the genetic signature we can select in a much more accurate way, the patients for whom chemotherapy is not going to bring significant benefit and who, therefore, will be treated with a different strategy, such as surgery with or without radiotherapy, because their therapeutic plan so recommends it”, he assures.
The process, as explained by Dr. Bernet, consists of carrying out the genetic signature of each patient in the initial biopsy. In this way, the integrated information from the usual pathological study, together with that from the genetic study, is available so that the breast tumor committee, made up of a multidisciplinary team of more than 50 professionals, can assess and analyze the most appropriate therapeutic strategy. to treat breast cancer in each patient, in a personalized way.
“We have taken an important step, moving away from the reductionist vision of the causes of cancer, focused only on the genetic alterations of the tumor cell”, he explains. "Now we have a more integrative vision, where the entire landscape that surrounds the cell matters, including, for example, the immune system of each patient."
About the Breast Area
Under the corporate management of Dr. Julia Camps, a multidisciplinary team has been set up in the university hospitals of Torrejón, Torrevieja and Vinalopó and in the Ribera Povisa Hospital, managed by the Ribera group, which brings together professionals with more than 20 years of experience. of experience in pathologies of the breast, especially breast cancer, and provides patients with a shared and transversal program, with personalized attention and the best specialists in Spain to assess each case jointly and transversally. The Breast Area is already working on the imminent incorporation of the Ribera Polusa hospitals, in a first phase, and Ribera Santa Justa and Ribera Almendralejo in Extremadura, and the recently incorporated Ribera Juan Cardona (Ferrol) and Ribera Molina (Murcia) soon .
The Breast Area has promoted the unification of processes and care circuits, valid in all the centers of the group, as well as the networking of all the professionals involved in the diagnosis and clinical and surgical approach to patients, each one from their own point of view. specialty, but with uniform criteria. The goal is for each patient to have the best team of professionals in all areas, wherever they live, in addition to the specialists who will carry out permanent and personalized support at the center of the group they attend.
