Cancer
The 34th edition of La Marató will be dedicated to publicising and boosting research into cancer, one of the main causes of death in Catalonia and worldwide. La Marató 2025, to be held on 14 December, will mobilise Catalan society around a disease that has a profound social impact and that still poses many challenges in research, a leading sector for our country at international level.
In 2024 Catalonia recorded 17,000 deaths from cancer, 46 every day or two every hour, and 45,600 cases were diagnosed according to figures from the Department of Health. Although research has led to great advances being made in survival, cancer remains one of the main causes of death in the world because its incidence has grown too. The scientific community forecasts that in 2025 the cases of the disease will rise by 3.29%. This has been a growing trend for years that is explained by the increase in life expectancy and the habits found in society.
In Catalonia, one man in two and one of every three women will have cancer at some point in their lives. In men it represents the leading cause of death and the most common ones are prostate, colorectal, lung, bladder and liver. Among women it is the second cause of death after cardiovascular diseases, the most common being breast, colorectal, lung, uterus and brain tumour. At paediatric age cancer is unusual, but because of its seriousness it represents the second cause of death up to the age of 14 after accidents. Every year around 200 cases of childhood cancer are diagnosed and the most common are leukemia, brain tumours and lymphomas.
For everybody, adults, children and their families, cancer not only makes a very great physical impact, but it has lifelong emotional consequences of great importance.
Research
In recent years cancer research has taken great steps towards understanding how the disease operates, leading to the creation of new diagnostic tools and new treatments, as well as developing personalised medicine that adapts the therapies to each patient and each tumour, which increases its effectiveness and reduces its side-effects. All this has translated into greater survival in cancers such as breast, prostate and colon and rectum. However, there is still much to do in cancers with poor prognosis, with a survival rate below 30%, such as pancreas, oesophagus, lung or liver, and brain tumours. In these cases, the future lies in diagnosing them in early stages and finding effective therapies, two factors that currently do not exist.
In order to treat more cancers successfully and less invasively for patients while preserving their quality of life as far as possible, research must advance in early detection, treatments and diagnosis of the disease. In the field of therapies, techniques are needed that guarantee greater precision in surgery and oncological radiotherapy, and progress must be made in immunotherapy, which has a very promising future. In diagnostic techniques, oncological research is making strides in techniques such as liquid biopsy, which will make it possible to detect the disease earlier, control the response to treatments and anticipate relapses. Also, it is necessary to advance in knowledge of how metastasis is produced.
The experts point out that one of the key factors for raising life expectancy is encouraging prevention since around 50% of cancers could be avoided by following healthy lifestyle choices, periodic check-ups and taking part in early-detection campaigns. In Catalonia there are screening programmes for breast, colorectal and cervical cancer. Healthy habits include following a balanced diet, not smoking and avoiding sitting too much, limiting alcohol consumption and being vaccinated against the viruses associated with certain cancers, such as human papilloma and hepatitis. While these factors are known, even more research is needed to identify more risk elements prevent the disease more effectively.
La Marató 2025
La Marató 2025 will dedicate its abilities for awareness-raising and mobilisation to cancer, because of all the challenges that the disease still poses and because of its profound impact on our society. On one hand, it will contribute to making people aware of everything that is within the reach of the general public to prevent and detect it in good time while, on the other hand, allocating resources to oncological research in Catalonia, a leading sector at international level that can make tangible breakthroughs in the quality and expectancy of life of people affected by it. The Board of the Foundation approved this topic at the proposal of its Scientific Advisory Committee, from applications received in the last call for disease proposals, held in 2024.