Breast Cancer Care in Latin America: NCCN and SLACOM Host Regional Summit

By: Lauren Velentzas
Posted: Wednesday, December 6, 2023

The Latin American and Caribbean Society of Medical Oncology (SLACOM) and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recently hosted the Latin American Regional Breast Cancer Summit: Advocating and Implementing Guideline-Concordant Cancer Care for Patients. The Buenos Aires summit hosted experts from across the Americas, including participants from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, Peru, and the United States.

The summit provided an opportunity to fill in the knowledge gaps in breast cancer care and health system processes for cancer prevention and control for patients in Latin America. Challenges in breast cancer care were discussed, along with potential solutions for improving access to guideline-concordant breast cancer care.

“There is a clear and urgent need to improve our current processes and systems, including those that guide patients in navigating health systems in Latin America,” said Eduardo L. Cazap, MD, PhD, founder and first President of SLACOM. “We hope the findings and recommendations from the SLACOM/NCCN Working Group, as well as the feedback from the Latin American Regional Breast Cancer Summit, will inform the development of Implementation Guidelines for Breast Cancer that can be used by patients, physicians, and systems to take action to address the needs of patients.”

The summit is a part of a wider effort by NCCN and SLACOM, first started in 2022 in Buenos Aires, to improve breast cancer care. Together, the two groups developed a set of recommendations with guideline implementations. These recommendations, along with a presentation outlining the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Breast Cancer Initiative Implementation Framework, were presented and discussed at this summit.

NCCN

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