- It may change the clinical and therapeutic plan in up to 40% of cases
- The objective of this pilot project, the only one of its kind in Spain, is to personalize healthcare as much as possible, applying precision medicine: the appropriate treatment, at the right time, for every patient.
- The Pathology Coordinator, Doctor Laia Bernet, explains that this prior genetic study is a great step forward since it is usually done after surgery.
Valencia, 19th July, 2021– The Ribera healthcare group’s Breast Department has revolutionized the diagnosis of breast cancer by launching a pilot project, unique in Spain, identifying the genetic signature in the initial biopsy, using the tissue with which the cancer diagnosis is made. Until now, this study was carried out on the tissue coming from surgical removal, which is the normal procedure. The project has been organized to obtain results in record time, approximately 48 hours, and not the usual 15 days it usually takes in this type of genetic study.
“The information obtained from the genetic study with two tests, one involving 70 genes that evaluates the possible benefit of chemotherapy and one involving 80 genes (BluePrint) that defines the molecular subtype of tumor, is key for the clinical and surgical plan for each patient”, explains the Patholgy coordinator of the group, Doctor Laia Bernet, who points out that “the information provided can change that therapeutic plan in up to 40% of cases”. “Its a major advancement on every level”, she adds.
The objective of this pilot project, the only one of its kind in Spain, is to personalize healthcare as much as possible, applying precision medicine, in other words, the appropriate treatment, at the right time, for each patient. Doctor Bernet affirms that the genetic signature “provides critical information in certain groups of patients, to decide if they are going to need chemotherapy or not, avoiding the toxicity that such treatment involves for patients that do not benefit from it”. “With the genetic signature we can select those patients who aren’t going to benefit from chemotherapy much more accurately, people who will be treated using a different strategy, such as surgery with or without radiotherapy, because their treatment plan recommends it”, she says.
The process, just as Doctor Bernet explains, consists of identifying the genetic signature of each patient in the initial biopsy. In this way, the information contained in the regular pathology study, together with the genetic study, is available to the breast tumor committee, made up of a multidisciplinary team of more than 50 professionals, so that they can evaluate and analyze the most appropriate treatment strategy for treating breast cancer in each patient, in a personalized way.
“We’ve taken an important step forward, away from the reductionist view of cancer causes, focusing only on the genetic alterations of the tumor cell”, she explains. “Now we have a more integrative view, one in which everything surrounding the cell matters, including the immune system of each patient, for example”.
About the Breast Department
Under the corporate management of Doctor Julia Camps, a multidisciplinary team has been put in place at the university hospitals of Torrejón, Torrevieja and Vinalopó and at Ribera Povisa Hospital, managed by the Ribera group, which unites professionals with over 20 years experience in breast pathologies, breast cancer in particular, and provides patients with a shared and transversal program, with personalized care and the best specialists that Spain has to offer in order to evaluate each case in a collaborative and transversal way. The Breast Department is already working on the imminent incorporation of Ribera Polusa hospital, in the first phase, and Ribera Santa Justa hospital and Ribera Almendralejo hospital in Extremadura, and the recently incorporated hospitals, Ribera Juan Cardona (Ferrol) and Ribera Molina (Murcia), shortly.
The Breast Department has pushed for the unification of care processes and circuits, applicable in all of the group’s centers, as well as the collaboration of all professionals involved in the diagnosis and clinical and surgical approach of the patients, each one from their speciality, but with the same criteria.
The objective is that each patient has the best team of professionals in all areas, regardless of where they live, as well as specialists that will provide permanent and personalized care within the center to which they attend in the group.
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