In France, 4 million people are affected by cancer today. These diseases are often difficult for doctors to treat, but in recent years, advances in technology and medicine have given hope in the treatment of cancers. Guest of the show Well done for youProfessor Fabrice Barlesi, Director General of the Gustave Roussy Institute in Villejuif, speaks on the subject and discusses these improvements.
“60% of diagnosed patients are cured”
For this professor, for 40 years, two important things have changed: diagnosis and therapeutic progress. “For 40 years, there has been an advent of new chemotherapies. But it is above all the advent of targeted therapies, thanks to molecular knowledge and precision medicine, but also of immunotherapy”, he underlines at the microphone of Julia Vignali and Mélanie Gomez. “And all of this progress has not only benefited the later stages of the disease, but it’s gradually benefiting the earlier stages, where we’re going to cure more people.”
Today, 60% of patients diagnosed with cancer are cured. Fabrice Barlesi also specifies that “for the vast majority of others, progress benefits and allows a so-called more normal life.”
Screening: an essential role
For the professor, a specialist in lung cancer, prevention plays an essential role in the treatment of these diseases. “Today, 40% of cancers are preventable and our knowledge, our ability to better prevent risks is greater than in the past”, he specifies. Who says prevention, says screening. If this subject comes up often, too few people submit to it. “It is essential, it is still a reduction of 20 to 30% in mortality for each of the cancers that can be detected”, insists Fabrice Barlesi.
As for advanced forms of cancer, immunotherapy and targeted therapies have made it possible, for aggressive diseases such as lung cancer or melanoma, to extend the life expectancy of patients by several years.