What are the challenges that kidney cancer patients face once they leave the hospital? This was revealed by an online survey carried out among 216 patients and promoted by the Italian Society of Uro-Oncology (SIUrO). For 58%, assistance from local medicine is insufficient while 29% find it difficult to contact the specialist doctor. For 46% it is difficult to access follow-up exams after therapies, while 24% have difficulty completing health documents. “Territorial medicine must play a fundamental role in the fight against complex cancers such as urological ones – says Camillo Porta, Full Professor of Medical Oncology at the Aldo Moro University of Bari and Director of the Medical Oncology Division of the Bari Polyclinic-. In particular, the General Practitioner is the first reference figure for patients and caregivers from the time of diagnosis. He must be able to refer his assisted by the right specialist, be it the urologist or the oncologist. Then there is the big problem of managing the side effects that strike when the patient is at home; it is here that the family doctor must play his part, obviously remaining in contact with the specialist. We have been returning from two terrible years where the pandemic has upset the ordinary hospital health care and has highlighted the limits of territorial medicine, especially in some Regions. And this partly explains the many difficulties highlighted by the survey we have conducted over the past few weeks. It is absolutely necessary to strengthen the links between territorial and hospital medicine, and some recent government measures seem to go in this direction “.
Webinar for patients
The results were presented during the “Kidney Cancer” webinar, broadcast on the Scientific Society’s Facebook page, the third in a series of online events that are part of the “SIUrO Meets Patients and Caregivers” project. Once a month the SIUrO experts address all aspects of urological tumors at 360 degrees (prevention, therapies, impact on daily life, bureaucratic-administrative difficulties, rehabilitation). Patients, caregivers, medical-health personnel, as well as simple web users can thus ask questions directly to specialists.
The therapies
“More than 144 thousand people live in our country with a diagnosis of renal carcinoma – adds Marco Roscigno, Medical Director of the Urology Unit of the ASST Papa Giovanni XXIII of Bergamo -. The five and ten-year survival rates are clearly improving thanks above all to the introduction of targeted therapies first and then of immunotherapy drugs. Surgery is the main indication in patients with non-metastatic disease, while for patients with widespread disease a therapeutic path shared by various specialists is required, which includes medical, surgical and radiotherapy treatment. The various treatments can cause side effects which, according to our survey, are judged to have a strong impact by three out of four patients “.
“It is a neoplasm in which chemotherapy has always had little use – continues Stefano Arcangeli, Director of the ASST Radiotherapy Unit of the San Gerardo Hospital of Monza -. As for radiotherapy, it is instead indicated above all in the treatment of some metastatic sites or to reduce pain related to bone metastases. At the moment, some studies are evaluating the effectiveness of possible combinations between radiotherapy and immunotherapy. The very first data show that it is a feasible and safe treatment, but its real effectiveness has yet to be demonstrated. In the future there could be an ever greater integration between these two therapeutic modalities “.