The Spanish Association Against Cancer has awarded the largest philanthropic financial aid granted so far in the country to research low-survival cancers in Spain: two new grants for cancer research projects, totalling 18 million euros, distributed in 20 Spanish provinces with more than 350 researchers involved.
One of the grants is for liver cancer research, led by Dr Josep M. Llovet (Clínic-IDIBAPS) and Dr Xosé R. Bustelo (CSIC-University of Salamanca), with funding of 8 million euros and a duration of 6 years. In this project, one of the participating centres will be the University Hospital of Girona Doctor Josep Trueta - Institute of Biomedical Research of Girona (IDIBGI) with Dr. Santiago López Ben (General Surgery Service - Head of the Hepatobiliopancreatic Section of the Hospital Trueta and member of the research group in General and Digestive Surgery of the IDIBGI) and Dr. Margarita Sala (Digestive System Service - Hepatology Unit of the Hospital Trueta and member of the research group in Digestive Diseases and Microbiota). The other grant is for a research project on small cell lung cancer led by the Hospital 12 de Octubre research institute and the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO).
Improving survival in liver cancer
In Spain, around 6,500 cases of liver cancer are diagnosed each year, of which hepatocellular carcinoma is the most frequent primary tumour. This type of carcinoma is highly aggressive, with cure rates of less than 30%. Resection of the tumour by surgery or liver transplantation are the main current treatments, although they are only applicable to 25% of patients. Moreover, these tumours tend to recur in 30-50% of cases three years after surgery.
Immunotherapy and surgery for hepatocellular carcinoma patients
The Hospital Clínic-IDIBAPS and the Centro de Investigación del Cáncer de Salamanca coordinate the grant "ASPIRE-AECC: Improving the survival of liver cancer patients by combining immunotherapy and surgery". The project, which will last six years, aims to carry out a randomised clinical trial to increase survival in patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma at high risk of developing a new tumour after surgical removal. Immunotherapy will be administered before and after tumour surgery to promote an increased anti-tumour immune response.
The project will also define markers to predict response to treatment in order to move towards a more personalised therapy, as well as identifying alternative therapies for patients who show resistance to immunotherapy treatment.
The clinical trial will be conducted in 15 hospitals, while laboratory studies will be carried out in 10 basic-translational research centres. A total of 40 medical professionals and researchers from 25 centres located in 15 provinces will participate in the project: A Coruña, Badajoz, Barcelona, Bizkaia, Cantabria, Córdoba, Gerona, Lérida, Málaga, Madrid, Navarra, Salamanca, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza.
"We are confident that the multifaceted nature of this consortium, together with the experience demonstrated by the different groups in conducting clinical trials and disruptive research, makes our overall objective feasible: the equitable improvement of overall survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma," say Drs. Llovet and Bustelo, project coordinators.
For their part, the team from the Hospital Trueta-IDIBGI in Girona, made up of Drs. Sala and López Ben, stress that: "Being able to participate in this large multicentre project is both great news and a great challenge for our hospital. But, above all, it is very good news for our patients with hepatocellular carcinoma".
Objective: to achieve 70% cancer survival
1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will have cancer in their lifetime. In Spain, one person is currently diagnosed with cancer every 2 minutes. In this context, where cancer is the biggest socio-health problem in the world, promoting cancer research must be a priority.
Faced with this reality, the Association Against Cancer is leading the "All Against Cancer" initiative with the aim of exceeding the 70% survival rate by 2030. Currently, thanks to research, the survival rate in men is 55.3% and in women 61.7%. To achieve this, it is necessary to promote research and scientific innovation and thus ensure that the results of the laboratory reach the patient.
The awards, presented at the Association's headquarters in Madrid on 19 June, are one of the main ways in which the Association seeks to achieve 70% survival in cancer by 2030, as they will bring research directly to the patient, improving their access to research results by having groups of both research and medical staff with a wide national distribution.
These two awards are within the framework of the AECC 70% Survival Challenge Grant, aimed at projects that respond to an unresolved clinical need, in the hope of increasing the survival of a type of cancer with low survival and with a wide national geographical distribution, such as lung and liver cancer, in this case.
