BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - "Nightmare" new rules on patient confidentiality are threatening breast cancer research which is vital to improve treatments for the disease that kills 500,000 women worldwide each year.

As 4,000 scientists, doctors and patient advocates gathered in Barcelona for the start of the 3rd European Breast Cancer conference Tuesday, a leading cancer expert said red tape was strangling scientific research.

"We all think cancer research is endangered because of very, very heavy regulation that has been put in place. The entire process is becoming a nightmare," Dr. Martine Piccart told Reuters.

The head of chemotherapy unit at the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels and an organizer of the conference said some consent forms which patients must sign before participating in medical studies and research programs are eight to 10 pages long. The problem is so serious young doctors are losing heart.

"All the obligations that investigators have, have grown to the point that young oncologists today are no longer interested in making the effort to run clinical trials which are the only way for us to make progress," she explained.

KEEPING CLINICAL TRIALS ALIVE

The controversy about confidentiality and informed consent, which has caused confusion about the legal status of medical research, is a main topic of the five-day breast cancer conference.

"We have to start thinking what we need to do in order to keep clinical research alive," said Piccart.

The conference will cover all areas of breast cancer care ranging from new diagnostic techniques to prevention methods and surgery and the latest drugs.

"I anticipate that we are going to see in the future very exciting new data on some new technologies that will allow us to analyze the individual tumor of a patient in terms of gene expression," said Piccart.

Scientists are increasingly using DNA analysis of the tumor to determine the best treatment, to monitor how effective it will be and to predict the impact it will have on the woman's prognosis.

"The data, although still preliminary, seems to indicate that it will be possible, sooner rather than later, to identify genetic profiles from the tumor that will tell the doctors this patient needs to be given treatment A while another patient needs to be given treatment B," according to Piccart.

"That is going to be very significant progress."

Piccart predicted that new biological agents specifically designed to target proteins in cancer cells will replace other breast cancer drugs or be integrated with them to improve patient care.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. About a million new cases of the disease are reported annually worldwide.

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