New breast cancer unit at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Sant Boi

Since last January, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Sant Boi has had a specialised, multidisciplinary unit to treat and operate on women diagnosed with breast cancer. The facility's goal is to deliver comprehensive care to women in diagnosing and treating breast diseases.

Until now, care at the Hospital was restricted to occasional treatment of benign breast tumours while malignant tumours were referred to Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge. However, the rise in malignant breast disease in El Baix Llobregat has made clear the need for local women to be cared for closer to home at their referral hospital.

The new Functional Breast Unit has made cancer treatment more accessible for these women while helping to shorten waiting lists of patients who were in line for treatment at Bellvitge. The unit has a multidisciplinary team made up mainly by professionals from Surgery, Gynaecology and Nursing in coordination with Oncology, Anatomical Pathology and Diagnostic Imaging. An individualised approach is taken for each case including diagnosis, treatment and careful monitoring of the disease over the following five years. Since the Unit started up, 70 women have been treated and 26 operations have been performed.

The benefits for patients are the facility's closeness to their homes, the personalised approach and the constant support provided by the nurse case manager. "At times as tough as this when they are diagnosed with breast cancer, we strive to give them the very best quality care and also provide them with a contact helpline which they can call or write to us whenever they have questions," says Sara Molina, a cancer nurse case manager at Hospital SJD Sant Boi. “This care, coupled with the fact that they can be treated close to home in a hospital they already know, makes all the difference.”

Next steps in the approach to breast cancer at the Hospital: from diagnosis to chemotherapy administration

Patients with malignant breast disease are referred to the hospital through population screening due to clinical suspicion at a primary health centre or their own suspicion. Mammography, ultrasound and MRI are the three key tests to confirm the existence of a malignant tumour and are subsequently backed up by other procedures such as biopsy. Once the diagnosis has been completed, the multidisciplinary medical team meets with the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) to choose the most appropriate treatment.

In this first stage, treatment at Hospital SJD Sant Boi includes non-complex surgery, either conservative (removal of the localised tumour) or radical (mastectomy), which does not call for plastic reconstruction. In the second stage and starting in the third quarter of 2025, complex surgery with the intervention of a plastic surgeon will begin. Patients who are not candidates for surgery at the outset but will have to be operated on with a marker system once the tumour has shrunk will also be able to have the procedure done. Furthermore, patients who have been referred firstly for non-surgical treatment and will then need surgery will be able to come back to the hospital. “We anticipate that between late 2025 and the start of next year we'll be able to start operating on all women with malignant breast disease,” notes Dr Elena Pareja, Unit coordinator and assistant to the General Surgery Service at Hospital SJD Sant Boi.

In the third stage, the partnership with the ICO will make it possible to hold outpatient follow-up visits at the same hospital where the patients have been operated on. In the last stage, which will coincide with the rollout of the second and is scheduled to take place between the last quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of next year, Hospital SJD Sant Boi will take on chemotherapy treatments, the last step in delivering comprehensive breast cancer care to patients in El Baix Llobregat.

Prevalent disease with a high growth and mortality rate forecast

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women worldwide. Figures from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a World Health Organisation (WHO) entity, show that by 2050 the number of cases of this type of cancer will have risen by 38% and mortality will climb to 68%. Prevention, detection and treatment measures are essential in the battle against the disease.

The goal of the WHO's Global Breast Cancer Initiative is to bring breast cancer mortality down worldwide by 2.5% per year. Although the mortality rate has fallen over the last decade, according to WHO estimates only seven countries in the world have hit this target.