DOHA: Sidra Medical and Research Centre will host the first international conference on breast cancer immunotherapy in Doha next week.
Led by international and local experts, the conference will focus on immunobiology and immunotherapeutic developments in breast cancer.
The conference on April 13 and 14 is being held in partnership with Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), the leading society in the field.
While immunotherapy has been effectively used in the treatment of melanoma and prostate cancer, it is considered highly experimental in breast cancer treatment. Other topics on the agenda include genetic risk factors of breast cancer in Arab populations; breast cancer control in Qatar; the prognostic and predictive role of immune biomarkers in response to cancer immunotherapy; and the description of novel immunotherapeutic approaches.
Breast cancer represents almost 30 percent of all cancer cases diagnosed in Qatari women, and is the most common in the country.
While the incidence of breast cancer in GCC countries is lower than in countries such as the US and Europe, it is rising fast.
Recent findings indicate that there is a unique pattern of the disease among the Arab population.
Arab women diagnosed with breast cancer are about 15 years younger than those diagnosed in Western countries (median age at diagnosis is 48 years in Arab population and 63 in Europe and the US). While in Europe and the US, breast cancer is generally detected in early stages, in GCC countries it is diagnosed at advanced stages in about 58 percent of the patients, indicating that the disease seems to be more aggressive in the Arab population.
The Peninsula
