4th Latin American Symposium on GastroIntestinal Oncology
Epidemiology of gastric cancer in Latin America
Dr Eduardo Cazap - SLACOM, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The first speaker gave a very nice description of the epidemiological situation in gastric cancer in our region: it’s much more frequent over the Pacific side of the continent while at the side of the Atlantic, Brazil, Argentina, the incidence of gastric cancer is much less. Then there was a very nice surgical presentation; the surgeons in Chile, they are very well trained in gastric cancer surgery, similarly to the Japanese colleagues. Also there was a nice discussion about multimodality treatment such as radio-chemotherapy or perioperative chemotherapy; there was not much support towards adjuvant treatments. The last lecture was about molecular targets and of course this is a new aspect of medical treatment of gastric cancer but there is growing interest and, as Peter was really mentioning, the new initiatives and new trials for molecular targeted therapies in gastric cancer.
There are two key aspects that are different about the outcome of this meeting. One is the scientific side; from a scientific perspective actually a hundred or one thousand attendees interested in gastrointestinal cancer and learning and with new knowledge, this is a very, very positive impact over colleagues and over the community and finally for the patients. The other side is not so easy, it’s more complex, it’s the issue of healthcare systems. Healthcare systems are different in different countries and how to translate the result of scientific knowledge to the healthcare systems is not so easy. So the idea for future meetings is to invite healthcare providers or healthcare groups in order to have a better connection between science and application of the science to the populations. But I think that one of the important achievements is to have a regional co-ordination or understanding of the problems, challenges and possibilities. Acting in a more regional way it is feasible to be more successful. It will be extremely difficult for a single country to really advance in cancer control actions alone.
The other comment is about the variability of healthcare access in our region. Even between the same country access to healthcare is not the same for a large number of people. So we expect that this regional action, working together, will make our Latin American region more equal.
