Liver cancer, Emilia Romagna brings oncology to community homes
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To improve the treatment of liver cancer, the Emilia-Romagna health system is reorganizing itself following the new guidelines on hepatocellular carcinoma approved by 10 scientific societies and drawn up in collaboration with patient associations. The model is that of the ‘Comprehensive cancer care network’: “We have launched a system that allows our professionals to follow standard paths and identified territorial areas that do not force citizens towards reference centers each time, but which allow them to carry out activities also in community houses. We are in the field of proximity oncology, a big step forward that will make citizens feel accompanied”, he said today in Bologna Mattia Altini, director of the hospital assistance sector of the Emilia-Romagna Region, on the occasion of the fourth stage of the roadshow ‘United and close to patients with hepatocellular carcinoma’, promoted by Roche with the patronage of EpaC onlus. In fact, EpaC onlus had conducted a survey of 150 people suffering from liver cancer, from which it emerged that 63% had turned to several structures before having a definitive diagnosis: “It means that they went around the seven churches – the president stressed Ivan Gardini – Patients need to know clear and rapid routes to easily reach the excellent facilities where they can be taken care of at 360 degrees”.
Liver cancer: 6 out of 10 patients forced to go to multiple centers
by Tiziana Moriconi
Liver cancer
In Italy there are an estimated 12,100 new diagnoses of hepatocellular carcinoma each year (of which 800 in Emilia-Romagna, where there are also 600 deaths per year). Over 70% of primary liver tumors are attributable to risk factors such as hepatitis or metabolic diseases. It is estimated that only in Northern Italy about a third of cases of hepatocellular carcinoma depend on alcohol abuse. Every year 2% of subjects at risk, i.e. one patient out of 50, develops cancer. “In the 60-69 age group today it represents the second cause of death in the Italian male – he explains Fabio Piscagliadirector of Internal Medicine, Hepatobiliary and Immuno-Allergological Diseases of the Irccs-Policlinico Sant’Orsola of Bologna – It is the age group in which it develops more frequently and with a very high mortality”.
Hepatocellular carcinoma, how to improve care, assistance and information
by Dario Rubino
Risk awareness and “initiative medicine”
Awareness of being at risk can make all the difference. In particular, experts advise doing an ultrasound scan every six months. One possibility under consideration, Piscaglia reasons, is to change the approach by calling people at risk directly, without waiting for them to carry out the checks. Acting in advance would allow, in the event that a tumor develops, to diagnose it at an early stage and modify the prognosis.
Hepatitis C, a new test to find early-stage infection
by Barbara Orrico
Advances in oncology in hepatocellular carcinoma
If up to 15 years ago there were no effective drugs, today we have different types and the most recent ones are based on immunotherapy. It is precisely this range of therapeutic options that makes a multidisciplinary approach to the disease necessary. “It starts with prevention, informing and making people aware of the risks associated with alcohol abuse and healthy lifestyles, for example. Then there is the vaccination against hepatitis B and antiviral treatments, diagnostics, up to radiotherapy , oncological surgery, drug treatment and transplantation – he explains Carmine PintoDirector of Medical Oncology of the Irccs of Reggio Emilia – All these figures need to be integrated into well-organized pathways at the level of the vast area and of our regional oncological network, which was born last December to give the patient treatment from any point of access more appropriate and more innovative”. Another front to work on – concludes Pinto – is to put research into a network at a regional level.
“What I learned from your illness”
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