On the occasion of World Breast Cancer Day, the Clínic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Centre (4CB) held an event open to patients, families, healthcare professionals and the general public to share some of the main advances in the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of the disease and to give a voice to people living with it. The event took place at the Paranimf of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona and was also broadcasted online.
Coordinated by Drs Meritxell Mollà and Olga Martínez, the event brought together professionals from the different disciplines involved in breast cancer care and was organised into several blocks on new treatments, patients’ quality of life and the growing role of the patient experience in healthcare. Topics included advances in medical oncology, radiotherapy, surgery, radiology and rehabilitation, as well as strategies to improve quality of life during and after treatment.
The DIANA-Breastyle trial studies whether exercise, nutrition and emotional support can improve response to chemotherapy in breast cancer
One of the highlights of the event was the presentation of the DIANA-Breastyle study, a project led by professionals from the Breast Cancer Unit of the Clínic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Centre that analyses the impact of prehabilitation in breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant treatment, which is administered before surgery.
Multimodal prehabilitation, more complex than the classic approach, is a strategy that aims to prepare patients to cope better with treatment through physical exercise, nutritional support and psychological care. Although it has already been used in other surgical fields to reduce complications and promote recovery, the study puts forward an innovative hypothesis: to determine whether this intervention can also increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy, measured through clinicopathological variables such as pathological complete response (pCR). There are currently very few similar studies.
According to Dr Eduard Mension, the gynaecologist in charge of the study together with Dr Helena Castillo, the aim is to analyse whether patients following a multimodal prehabilitation programme achieve a better tumour response to treatment. “We don’t just want patients to reach surgery in better shape; we want to find out whether we can also improve the tumour’s response to chemotherapy,” he says.
Although the study began within the Gynaecology Department, the initiative involves professionals from many specialties who are part of the hospital’s Breast Cancer Unit. The team includes specialists in medical oncology, radiology, pathology, molecular biology, surgery, anaesthesiology, physiotherapy, nutrition and psychology. The prehabilitation programme is coordinated jointly with the anaesthesiology team in charge of the hospital’s programme. According to Mension, this cross-disciplinary approach is essential for delivering such a complex intervention: “It is a one hundred per cent multidisciplinary project. Without the involvement of all these professionals, it would be impossible to carry out.”
Mercedes, one of the patients who has taken part in the study, shared her experience: “Super positive. I came in here completely worn out, but along the way, with the training, I got to surgery in much better shape. I was able to cope better with the treatment and I was given guidance on everything to do with looking after the body, but not only the body, also the mind, which in this process is almost harder to manage than the body.” As a result of taking part, Mercedes has set up a group for women: “I have to tell you that DIANA helped me so much that I’ve started a group called ‘Diana te cuida’, where we are trying to build a community to support women with breast cancer from the patient’s point of view, but also with professional support behind it, that is, to have the whole ecosystem of the disease.”
The study is currently in the recruitment phase and has already passed the halfway mark in terms of planned patients. The team expects to have a first interim analysis in 2026 and final results around 2028. If the results confirm the working hypothesis, prehabilitation could become established as a complementary tool to optimise the results of cancer treatment and open up new lines of research in other types of cancer. The DIANA-Breastyle study has been made possible thanks to a grant from 3Cat’s La Marató, with Dr Mension as principal investigator, and a post-residency Emili Letang grant awarded to Dr Castillo
