Emmanuel Macron visiting the Gustave Roussy Institute, specialized in the fight against cancer, February 4, 2021. -
Ludovic MARIN / POOL
This Thursday, on the occasion of World Cancer Day, Emmanuel Macron unveiled the main thrusts of the ten-year strategy to fight cancer.
Prevention, screening, fight against inequalities and sequelae, the Inca has specified the ambitions of this ten-year plan.
With an increased budget and quantified objectives, this plan hopes to reduce the number of deaths for the leading cause of death in France.
"Despite the pandemic, France, hand in hand with Europe, is not giving up in its ambition to reduce cancer," hammered Emmanuel Macron this Thursday morning.
On the occasion of World Cancer Day and the 8th Meeting of the National Cancer Institute (Inca), the President of the Republic unveiled the strategy to fight against these diseases, which, for the first time, is being implemented. over ten years.
This plan includes more than 200 measures to fight against risk factors and delay in diagnoses, improve access to innovative treatments, with great ambitions and increased resources.
Sufficient?
Focus on prevention
The ten-year strategy, which will be steered by the Inca, will include four areas: improving prevention, fighting cancer with a "bad prognosis", reducing the consequences of the disease and fighting against inequalities.
Prevention is a common thread of the government.
“This is one of the weaknesses of the French model, recognized Emmanuel Macron.
Our goal is to consolidate the gains and to change scale.
”Recalling that 40% of cancers are preventable.
The enemies are now known: tobacco, alcohol, poor diet, UV rays, sedentary lifestyle and pollution.
"Our actions will primarily target young people," promised the president.
Who wants to see in 2030 a generation of thirtysomething without a cigarette.
A good initiative, according to the experts invited to this remote conference.
"The advantage of having an approach on children is that they are the adults of tomorrow and that they are prescribers for their parents and their peers", underlined Linda Cambon, prevention researcher.
Tobacco is a good example of success because we have a global approach: price, advertising, awareness campaign, ”continued the researcher.
Whether this all-out method will be applied to other cancer risk factors remains to be seen.
We know the president is more cautious in criticizing alcohol, a local product and national tradition.
“It is not a question of going towards zero alcohol, but of preventing addiction,” he said.
We will provide more visible and readable benchmarks on each product.
"
Wondering about the after-effects, a novelty
The strategy does not forget the lives of patients in a long neglected “after”.
“Two thirds of patients retain sequelae five years later.
It is a question of reducing this number to less than a third ”, announced the president.
An important novelty, according to Thierry Philip, chairman of the board of the Institut Curie.
“There are the physical (pain, scar), moral, economic and social after-effects, list Pascale Altier, former patient and member of the health democracy committee at the Inca.
A patient who feels listened to and integrated is fundamental and it does not require a budget, but a human position.
Emmanuel Macron is pleased that France has been a pioneer in the right to be forgotten, a device which erases all information on cancer ten years after the end of therapies.
But the League against Cancer recalls "the promise of candidate Emmanuel Macron to pass the right to be forgotten from ten to five years, and not eight years as proposed by the ten-year strategy".
Finally, Thierry Philip is delighted that the link between France and Europe has been underlined by the president.
Indeed, the European Union announced Wednesday a plan to fight cancer of 4 billion euros.
"Which is in addition to a European mission focused on cancer research," resumes Thierry Philip.
These two European plans are linked to our ten-year strategy.
"
Realistic goals?
Without going into the details of the 234 measures, the president set ambitious and sometimes quantified objectives.
The hope is for example to go from 150,000 to 100,000 deaths per year.
And to reduce the number of preventable cancers per year by 60,000 by 2040, against 153,000 today.
"I want us to reach at least 1 million additional screenings per year by 2025, argued Emmanuel Macron [against 9 million each year today].
We need to look far and invent the screening of tomorrow by mobilizing artificial intelligence and big data.
"
"Emmanuel Macron has opened the door to lung screening while so far it has never been funded," says Thierry Philip.
If we can operate for lung cancer, it's 50% survival.
Otherwise, it's 5% or 20% through immunotherapy.
"Hence the importance of not diagnosing too late ...
"It's a very ambitious bet," admitted Norbert Ifrah, president of the Inca, commenting on the entire strategy.
These proposals are the result of a very large consultation, experts, caregivers, patient associations, families and two public consultations.
What is striking is the concordance of points of view.
" There's no time to lose.
“We start with a third of the actions from 2021.” The president of Inca says he is confident in the success of this ten-year plan.
"The past pleads for the future," he assumes.
I am old enough to have known a time when we had a little party when the patient survived the assault of the disease and the treatments.
At the end of the 1950s, 35% of patients lived five years after diagnosis when today it is 70%.
Even immense progress on the side of pediatric cancers, which benefit from a spotlight.
"When I started my career, we cured 40% of children, today it is 80%", summarizes Thierry Philip.
Proof that past strategies have worked.
"Write goals, put money in front, give limited time, that's how any business works," he laughs.
The question of means
A "roadmap" with concrete actions has for the moment been established for the period 2021-2025, and will be concretized by a decree published on Friday.
With a budget of 1.74 billion euros from the State and Social Security, an increase of 20% compared to the funding of the previous plan.
“An undeniable effort,” notes Thierry Philip.
Half of these resources will be devoted to research, warned Emmanuel Macron.
If the League against cancer welcomes the ambitions displayed this Thursday, it warns in a statement against funding provided over five years, not ten.
"The challenges and expectations generated require that the resources put in place be up to the task: whether financial or human, they require political will on difficult subjects such as the organization of care channels, the decompartmentalization of city-hospitals in the best interests of sick people and the cost of cancer drugs.
"
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