New horizons of onco-help

From October 4 to 5, 2019, the jubilee X VESTIFINANCE Forum was held in Moscow. This is an open discussion platform dedicated to key topics of the global economy. This year, the forum discussed issues of the future development of medicine, its participants talked about the prospects for the development of the industry and modern medical innovations. Andrey Kaprin, Chief Oncologist of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, General Director of the FSBI “NMIC of Radiology”, was invited to the forum as an expert with a report “Horizons of oncological care”.

Speaking to the participants, A.D. Kaprin reminded that the fight against cancer is a national priority today. Since the end of 2018, the country has been implementing a national program to combat oncological diseases, the key goal of which is to reduce mortality from ZNO and increase life expectancy.

– The fight against cancer is not just a matter of doctors. This is an interdisciplinary, interstate task. Therefore, specialists from any country should share the latest developments without any jealousy in order to defeat the disease together,” Kaprin stressed.

Speaking about innovations and development prospects in the field of oncology, Andrey Dmitrievich said that along with the development of new treatment protocols, bioinformatic research and the construction of mathematical models aimed at optimizing therapeutic and diagnostic algorithms, the development of new drugs and their delivery means, work is underway to design new, more advanced tools, including among the most complex radiomedical installations. Separately, he noted such areas of research as gene therapy and immunotherapy, which have received their rapid development in recent years, as well as theranostics. He called the sequencing of the genome of a new generation another promising direction, the possibilities of which have significantly expanded over the past 20 years. Currently, this method allows not only to optimize the appointment of targeted therapy, but also to conduct dynamic monitoring, assess the risk of relapse, tumor aggressiveness, and more.

The expert also spoke about modern diagnostic methods. For example, about the method of studying the sensitivity of tumor cells to drugs in in vitro and in vivo models. Due to this, the choice of an individual treatment regimen is selected based on testing of chemotherapeutic drugs on organotypic models obtained from the patient’s tumor cells. The method makes it possible to identify the resistance of the patient’s cells to some of them and increase the effectiveness of the prescribed treatment. He noted that the NMIC of Radiology has developed a special microflidic system for automating this process.

A separate section of the lecture was devoted to nuclear medicine. According to Kaprin, the introduction of nuclear medicine methods into everyday medical practice is one of the main ways to increase the effectiveness of treatment of ZNO. Thus, proton therapy is one of the rapidly developing technologies that can dramatically reduce the radiation load on the normal tissues surrounding the tumor, improve the quality of life and the effectiveness of treatment of cancer patients. About 70 proton therapy clinical centers have already been established in the world, and in the coming years this number will increase by more than 1.5 times. It is gratifying that in recent years the first such centers have appeared in Russia, capable of solving the most complex tasks. Another promising, highly effective direction of radiation therapy development is heavy carbon ion therapy – combining high conformality of irradiation and the ability to overcome the resistance of many neoplasms to other types of radiation. In recent years, clinical centers for carbon ion therapy have been established in many developed countries of the world, most of them in Japan.

He recalled that in September 2019, a Russian-Japanese cooperation agreement was signed to establish such a center in Obninsk on the basis of the NMIC of Radiology of the Ministry of Health of Russia.

A.D. Kaprin’s speech aroused great interest and discussion among the forum listeners. The Chief oncologist of the Ministry of Health of Russia received several dozen questions and suggestions, including from young specialists from the regions. In total, during the long-term existence of the forum, it was visited by over 5,000 thousand participants, and more than 20 leading Russian scientists, economists, businessmen, members of the government and heads of the Central Bank of Russia spoke. The event was held with the organizational participation of the Doctor TV channel and the Roscongress Foundation.

Press Service of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “NMIC of Radiology” of the Ministry of Health of Russia