Improving access to screening in colorectal and lung cancer is the challenge in Mexico

Mexico faces the great challenge of improving the early diagnosis of cancer colorectal and pulmonary since, despite being one of the oncological conditions with the highest incidence and mortality in the country, there is little dissemination and access to its scrutiny, medical oncologist Julio César Garibay told EFE.

“Most people are familiar with mammography, pap smears, even prostate examination, but not with a colonoscopy to detect colorectal cancer, which we have within our reach”Garibay explained during his presentation at the Amgen Medical Excellence Summit (CEMA 2024) held in the Mexican Caribbean.

In the case of lung cancer, he argued that the tests are usually aimed at the population at highest risk, “as smokers or ex-smokers”, but that from 50 to 55 years old, candidates can undergo a “low dose tomography”.

“This study (low-dose tomography) is also available and it is proven that it can reduce a twenty% the risk of dying from lung cancer revealed.

This, he explained, considering that lung cancer is divided into two main types, small cell (SCLC) and non-small cell (NSCLC), and that the latter is the most common, since it represents the 85% to 90% of the cases.

According to 2022 records from the World Health Organization (WHO), in Mexico the third oncological condition with the highest incidence was colorectal cancer (16,082 new cases) and the deadliest nationwide with 8,283 deaths, while lung cancer It was third with 7,808 deaths.

Given this panorama, the expert highlighted the need to invest so that patients have a “personalized treatment” and not only of the “standard chemotherapy”since in this way each tumor can be targeted in a targeted manner with treatments that increase survival as biocomparable to those that Amgen has had in its portfolio in Mexico for more than a year.

However, Garibay specified that due to factors such as “fear, anguish or modesty”patients with lung and colorectal cancer are arriving at hospitals in “stage 4 (advanced) already with metastasis”, which prevents them from being candidates for surgical treatments with curative potential.

Greater incidence in young people

Another aspect that the member of the Mexican Society of Oncology has detected is that these conditions are becoming more and more common in young people, mainly in the case of colorectal cancer.

“To a large extent, one of the explanations is that people who were born in the late eighties and nineties have most likely been exposed to an unhealthy diet, with ultra-processed foods, little exercise, more sedentary lifestyle, aspects that have an impact,” he asserted.

Furthermore, he pointed out that in the last decade a factor that oncologists are considering is “the atmospheric pollution”, Because living for a long time in a city with high levels of pollution implies a risk for lung cancer and other diseases.

To achieve correct care for these new cases of cancer, it is necessary to have more specialists, according to the expert, emphasizing that international organizations recommend that a medical oncologist “has more or less 400 cancer patients under his care.”

“In our country that figure is much higher,” He recognized, while highlighting, that there is also a need for more general practitioners who have the working conditions to detect these pathologies and refer patients who require a specialist.

“As a society we are used to thinking that the best thing is to go directly to the specialist, in reality it would be appropriate for us to have a robust and solid health system from the first level of care so that the patient can detect their problem as soon as possible,” he concluded.

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