On the occasion of World Cancer Day, which will be commemorated on February 4, the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy (SEHH) focuses on the impact of blood cancers in Spain and the challenges posed by their diagnosis and treatment, both for specialists and for the patients themselves.
According to the report The figures for blood cancer in Spainprepared by the Spanish Network of Cancer Registries (REDECAN), it is estimated that in 2026 malignant hemopathies will represent 10% of all new cancer diagnoses, with nearly 28,000 new cases. These figures once again place blood cancers as the fifth most common type of cancer in our country, only behind breast, lung, prostate and colon cancers.
Challenges for a more promising future
In this context, the SEHH is promoting an outreach campaign this year aimed at the general population with the aim of increase knowledge about blood cancers and raise awareness of challenges that hematologists face in their daily approach. These are pathologies that are often little known or difficult for citizens to identify, which highlights the need to reinforce social awareness.
In line with the international initiative “United by the only thing”and in response to the different questions posed by society, SEHH hematologists offer clear information and explanations about the main challenges of your specialty. Among them, they highlight the need to continue advancing in research and early detection, improve the quality of life of patients, promote increasingly personalized treatments and guarantee equitable and universal access to innovative therapies.
These efforts have contributed significantly to improving the prognosis of patients, with a progressive increase in survival rates, which currently they reach 63% in Spainas well as a better quality of life.
Although in some malignant hemopathies, such as multiple myeloma, a paradigm shift is occurring with cure strategies in selected patients, there are other diseasessuch as myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), in which research remains key. In these cases, hematologists emphasize the importance of delving into its biology, since there are still no treatments capable of guaranteeing positive long-term results.
In this scenario, SEHH hematologists send a message to the population focused on the need to continue supporting innovation and research as fundamental pillars to advance the approach to blood cancers.
