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Aleix Prat Shared Christina Szalinski’s Article on Treating Cancer Better

Aleix Prat and Christina Szalinski

Aug 17, 2025, 14:07

Aleix Prat Shared Christina Szalinski’s Article on Treating Cancer Better

Aleix Prat, Director of the Clínic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Center at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, shared an article by Christina Szalinski on LinkedIn:

“Very good article by Christina Szalinski, PhD by Medscape.

Treating More Isn’t Enough — We Must Treat Better

This Medscape article reminds us that trial data often understate the real burden of side effects in cancer care. Guidelines focus on benefit, but too rarely on the patient’s lived experience.

An example is pembrolizumab in early-stage triple-negative breast cancer in combination with chemotherapy. We all have seen life threatening toxicities and long-lasting toxicities. Guidelines claim it is a preferred level 1A evidence for this regimen…and this forces oncologists to indicate it but…most patients are cured without it…

Tools that help better estimate the patient’s risk of relapse can help a lot here.”

Read the full article on Medscape.

Aleix Prat

Miguel Bronchud, Co-Founder and Advisory Board at Regenerative Medicine Solutions, commented on this post:

“Quite true, Aleix . The benefit/risk equation reported in the controlled setting of an oncology clinical trial may appear favorable but the reality in everyday practice can look quite different, especially to individual patients. Not to mention the issue of financial toxicity in private/insurance based cancer services. Christina has a point when she says that ‘Immunotherapies, in particular, straddle a fine line.’

By training the immune system to attack tumor cells, these drugs can also unleash it against healthy organs — thyroid, colon, lungs, the pituitary gland, the liver etc.

And yet, fighting (or ideally even preventing) a potentially deadly disease with our own immune system remains the primary hope for many. Uncertainty about treatment outcomes or side effects is still part of the game, for both patients and doctors. Science can help reducing uncertainty but also helps us understand how reality is always based on probability and not absolute certainty.

Sharing the correct information with patients and relatives (with the right words and at the right time), is often more of a clinical and psychological art, than a scientific or regulatory exercise?”

More posts featuring Aleix Prat on OncoDaily.