On Sunday 12 May, the appointment with L’Azalea della Ricerca of the AIRC Foundation returns on the occasion of Mother’s Day. In Marsala the volunteers will be in Piazza Loggia, in Via Don Bosco ai Salesiani and in the Strasatti Chiesa MSAddolorata district.
Throughout Italy, around 20 thousand volunteers are taking to the streets to celebrate forty years of commitment to supporting research on tumors affecting women and remembering that the future of research is in our hands.
For forty years the AIRC Foundation’s Research Azalea, the flower symbol of Mother’s Day, has been an ally of research into tumors affecting women. With a total collection of around 300 million euros, the AIRC Foundation’s Azalea has contributed over four decades to improving the quality of life and survival of women, through constant diagnosis
earlier, less invasive surgical approaches and more precise and targeted, more effective and better tolerated therapies.
Today 2 out of 3 women in Italy are alive 5 years after a cancer diagnosis. Azalea celebrates its fortieth birthday this year, reminding us that the future of research is in our hands. About twenty thousand volunteers, coordinated by seventeen offices
regional, return to over 3,500 squares to distribute over 600 thousand azalea seedlings for a minimum donation of 18 euros.
RESEARCH CONSTANTLY GAINS GROUND
In these forty years, AIRC’s Azalea has contributed to many important results to improve therapies, including:
breast cancer conservative surgery, a technique equally effective compared to radical mastectomy, but capable of sparing part of the breast. Sentinel lymph node biopsy, a technique initially developed to evaluate the
spread of melanomas and which was then also extended to breast cancer. Survival 5 years after diagnosis for breast cancer is constantly increasing: in the last 30 years it has gone from 78% to 88% (Source: AIOM, AIRTUM, I numeri del cancer in Italia
2023). A new drug, trabectedin, for advanced ovarian cancer. Reducing the dose of hormone therapy, tamoxifen, in the treatment of breast cancer is effective both in reducing the risk of disease recurrence by approximately 50 percent and in preventing breast cancer in high-risk women. A molecular test which, together with spiral CT, allows for early and precise diagnosis of lung cancer in smokers and heavy smokers. In the future the test could be used as a screening for the early diagnosis of populations at risk.
The possibility of identifying disease recurrence due to resistance in colon cancer earlier than imaging tests, thanks to liquid biopsy. This still experimental tool could also be useful in guiding the choice of treatments after tumor removal surgery. New neoadjuvant therapies for the treatment of locally advanced rectal cancer in MSI patients, i.e. with microsatellite instabilities, with immunotherapy alone, without resorting to chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. In these cases surgery can be avoided, while in MSS cases without microsatellite instability, by adopting a neoadjuvant approach of medical therapy and radiotherapy, surgery can be avoided in about a third of patients, as shown by the results of the NO-CUT study.
THE CHALLENGES: EARLY DIAGNOSIS AND NEW THERAPIES FOR OVARIAN CANCER
Some tumors, more insidious and difficult to detect early, represent an open challenge for research. One of these is ovarian cancer which affects approximately 6,000 women in Italy every year and represents approximately 3 percent of all cancer diagnoses. However, there is a recent, very encouraging result achieved by the study group coordinated by Maurizio D’Incalci, professor of pharmacology at Humanitas University, head of the Anti-tumor Pharmacology laboratory at IRCCS Istituto Clinico Humanitas and AIRC researcher. With analysis of genomic instability, specific molecular alterations of ovarian cancer could be identified in the swabs used for the Pap test, years in advance of the first symptoms. The validity of this innovative approach will now need to be confirmed in prospective studies. If the results are positive, the non-invasive test could be implemented on a large scale, with population screening for the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS TRANSLATE INTO LIVES SAVED
Over the last forty years, the lives of over two million women have been saved from cancer in Europe. Among these is Pina who in 2004, at the age of 42, received a diagnosis of stage IV ovarian cancer with metastasis. She is also a carrier of mutations in the BRCA genes and for this reason, over the course of about twenty years she has faced the resurgence of the disease several times, but always benefiting
of new research results. “I am aware that every day is a gift for me and perhaps this awareness of ‘living in extension’ makes me savor everything with more happiness. In recent years I have been subjected to new therapeutic approaches which have allowed me to respond more effectively to the reappearance of the disease. I am here today and I am lucky enough to have a team by my side: doctors, researchers and above all my family. I firmly believe that only by continuing to support research
answers will be found for all women.”
RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS TRANSLATE INTO LIVES SAVED
Over the last forty years, the lives of over two million women have been saved from cancer in Europe. Among these is Pina who in 2004, at the age of 42, received a diagnosis of stage IV ovarian cancer with metastasis. She is also a carrier of mutations in the BRCA genes and for this reason, over the course of about twenty years she has faced the resurgence of the disease several times, but always benefiting
of new research results. “I am aware that every day is a gift for me and perhaps this awareness of ‘living in extension’ makes me savor everything with more happiness. In recent years I have been subjected to new therapeutic approaches which have allowed me to respond more effectively to the reappearance of the disease. I am here today and I am lucky enough to have a team by my side: doctors, researchers and above all my family. I firmly believe that only by continuing to support research
answers will be found for all women.”
