Antonella Cardone
CEO, Cancer Patients Europe
A cancer advocacy group warns that data relating to antimicrobial infections (AMI) in cancer patients is being under-recorded in hospitals across Europe.
Cancer Patients Europe (CPE) believes the risk posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in cancer care is being overlooked and that the cause of death in cancer sufferers often fails to reflect the fact that an antibiotic resistant-related infection killed them rather than their underlying condition.
Infection risk
CPE’s CEO Antonella Cardone says: “AMR is a priority for us because it is significantly impacting cancer patients; data shows that 50% of all cancer deaths are due to antibiotic-resistant infections, which could not be treated.”
She adds: “We cannot ignore this, and the situation is worsening to the point that, as cancer treatments impact the immune system of individuals, there is the risk that soon the use of traditional cancer treatments like chemotherapy will be compromised due to the infection risk.”
CPE — a pan-European patient organisation with 70 members from 29 countries and working on research, advocacy and delivering a united voice for the cancer community in Europe — highlights further data suggesting that cancer patients are up to three times more at risk of developing an infection compared to patients without cancer.
Data shows that 50% of all
cancer deaths are due to
antibiotic-resistant infections.
AMR data capture
Cardone and leading oncologists fear that such high levels of infection risk could undermine innovations such as CAR T-cell therapy and other immunotherapies. An additional concern is a lack of capture of AMR as a cause of death; when an oncology patient suffers an AMR-related death, the cause is still often recorded as cancer-related.
“This is because when people enter the hospital or a treatment pathway, they enter as cancer patients. When they die, the death is recorded as cancer rather than considering that the reason that caused the death in the end was the infection,” she adds.
“We strongly believe that if this alarming data were shown in hospital records, there would be greater attention to the topic of AMR and to the urgent need to take decisive actions by policymakers.”
Emotional burden
There is also an overlooked AMR-associated emotional burden impacting patients and families as they go through their challenging cancer treatment journey. “The risk of an infection puts a huge psychological burden on patients and families because they then tend to isolate themselves,” she says. “They avoid going to work or having a social life, but this is a vicious circle because people become depressed, which aggravates the entire situation.”
To help address this, we want more attention to be given to the prevention of infections, identifying novel effective antibiotics, as well as making them accessible to all those patients who need them most.
