Among the multiple public health problems that exist, there is a very important one that has not been controlled. It is about cancer because every year the number of reported cases increases. Due to the complexity of the disease, the treatment offered to patients must also be considered. For this reason, it has recently been proposed to use both personalized medicine and holistic care for cancer care.
In the framework of World Cancer Day which is commemorated every February 4, industry experts observe trends for the coming years that, although they have been part of medicine for years, their development or adoption has accelerated to offer more and better alternatives to patients.
In this sense, Dr. Ana Polanco, director of the Medical Area of Astellas Farma México, emphasizes that putting the patient first and at the center is vital to improve their health experience.
“For this reason, precision medicine and holistic care for cancer patients should be approaches that we must not lose sight of.”
What does it consist of?
On the one hand, precision medicine is a type of care that uses information from a person’s genes or proteins to diagnose or treat cancer and other diseases. This allows us to offer personalized treatments which have greater specificity and therefore greater efficacy and less toxicity compared to conventional treatments.
“Until recently, most treatments had been designed for the average patient, which meant that they could be very successful for some patients, but not so successful for others. Designing personalized treatments based on the science of the human genome will undoubtedly bring benefits.”
Considering that, according to the Global Cancer Observatory, in 2020, 195 thousand 499 new cases of cancer in Mexico, precision medicine, also called personalized medicine, is an innovative approach that helps health professionals better understand the patient and their disease.
Holistic care is an approach where all aspects of a person are considered to cure an illness. It is believed that all patients are made up of interdependent parts and if one part is not working properly, the other parts will be affected. Physicians who seek to offer holistic care to their cancer patients combine medications with changes in lifestyle, to address each of the edges that can affect people’s quality of life.
A very complex disease to treat
Cancer, like other diseases, is not a homogeneous disease, in it a great variety of factors intervene such as the person’s age, sex, the moment of life in which it occurs, the emotional support that it possesses, among others, situation that makes it difficult to encompass in a single word the universe of physical and mental events experienced by patients.
“In recent decades, technological advances in the area of cancer have allowed new treatments to increase patient survival rates and improve their quality of life. Today, research shows the need to transcend a biomedical model of health care, towards a holistic approach that addresses emotional, spiritual, social, nutritional and psychological aspects, among others”.