Prevention and information to fight breast cancer: the new campaign "The future needs time"

Breast cancer is the No. 1 enemy of women with over 400,000 cases in Italy alone and an incidence of about 45,000 new cases per year (about 140 per 100,000 inhabitants). Unfortunately, an evil that is constantly increasing, even among young people under the age of 45, responsible for about 11,000 deaths in 2013 alone.

It is mainly women who live in the North of Italy who get sick, although in the South still very few of them undergo routine diagnostic tests such as mammography or ultrasound. In the last 30 years, research has made great strides forward, so much so that survival continues to grow steadily: thanks to prevention and the correct diagnostic-therapeutic process, today in Italy 9 out of 10 patients survive five years after diagnosis. and the great challenge for the future is to make the disease more and more curable.

With this in mind, "The future needs time" was born, a national awareness campaign promoted by alfemminile.com and which is carried out with the unconditional contribution of Roche. "This campaign is a way to raise awareness among women on the subject and to encourage dialogue on the approach to the disease, as well as on prevention", says Simona Zanette, CEO of alfemminile.com, who continues: "But also to inform them, through the voice of specialists, of the progress made by science in the fight against this neoplasm, with the aim of making them feel less alone, also by sharing many common experiences in our forum. We believe that the more women will have the ideas clear about this pathology, the more we will have contributed to developing a culture of prevention and early diagnosis, which can truly save lives. For this reason, moreover, we have asked Salute Donna to participate in this campaign. Because only through collaboration with a group of people who know well the big and small problems that a woman faces when she receives a cancer diagnosis, we can really do our own too part ".

For this reason, as part of the Campaign, special content relating to breast cancer will be dedicated throughout the year on www.alfemminile.com, starting with the importance of prevention. According to the most recent studies, breast cancer mortality is reduced by about 35% among women who practice mammography every two years, although in our country there are still considerable geographical inequalities regarding participation in collective screening campaigns. "The average of those who carry out routine diagnostic tests on a regular basis is still too low", says Prof. Paolo Marchetti, head of medical oncology at Sant'Andrea in Rome, who continues: "Yet the healings are in increase thanks to the early diagnosis and the availability of new and increasingly effective therapies that allow to treat even the most aggressive forms of this pathology, such as HER2-positive tumors, which are observed in about one in five cases of breast cancer and which are considered among those with the most negative prognosis ".

Being close to all women who face a diagnosis of cancer and, therefore, undertake the path of treatment is the goal of Salute Donna, a "voluntary association (ONLUS) founded in 1994 at the" Istituto dei Tumori di Milano, by will by Annamaria Mancuso, who lived that experience firsthand and who, on the occasion of the launch of the "The future needs time" campaign, underlines the importance of providing specific information on these issues: "keep talking, and to talk about the different forms of breast cancer is essential to implement a virtuous path that sees the patient at the center, surrounded and supported, as well as by her own family and by the specialists who treat her, by a help network to cope with psychological distress, as well as with material urges, but also with sharing the experience, which makes her feel less alone and, therefore, makes her less vulnerable ", this is what Mancuso declares.
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