Yesterday, May 5th, at 3p.m. (Lisbon time), surgeon Pedro Gouveia was in the operating room, at the Breast Unit of the Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon, ready to start, as in so many other occasions, performing breast cancer surgery. Meanwhile, another surgeon from the same unit, the young Spaniard Rogelio Andrés-Luna, was attending the operation, and intervening, when needed, by supplying Pedro Gouveia with additional information to help him – and even guide his gestures. Everything seems to be business as usual – but it isn’t.

This first Check Up is about the resurgence of cancer once the disease has been controlled by treatment. Do these terms used to talk about this problem mean the same thing?

Relapse, recurrence, recidivation. These words all mean the same thing in general terms: the disease is back.

However, there are differences between them when it comes to their clinical and medical meaning, which many people are not aware of.

This lecture is part of the "Champalimaud Cancer Talks" series, organised by the Champalimaud Foundation with the aim of offering the general public unique opportunities to hear the world's leading authorities in different fields related to cancer research and clinical practice. This time, Professor Hidde Ploegh will present his research work on:

The team, headed by Manuel Valiente from CNIO, which counts with the contributions of scientists from other Research Centres, namely the Champalimaud Foundation, found that a simple blood test can help detect patients with resistance to brain radiotherapy and identified a drug that might reverse it. A multi-centre clinical study is now under way to validate the predictive potential of this biomarker through the National Brain Metastasis Network (Spanish acronym: RENACER).

The study is being published in Nature Medicine this week.

Rita Fior uses zebrafish to do basic and translational research in cancer at the Champalimaud Foundation. A few years ago, having to deal with cancer in her family led her to design a test, based on her animal “model” – that would allow doctors to choose, among the available chemotherapeutic options, the best one for a given patient. How? Using the little zebrafish as “avatars”, as personalised “alter-egos” of the patients. Tumour cells from a patient are injected in the fish, generating the “avatars'' that will then be submitted to the treatment options available for that patient.

Interview with Oriol Parés and Bill Heald

A Fundação Champalimaud, enquanto instituição prestadora de cuidados na área da oncologia e centro privilegiado de aprendizagem, promove anualmente uma conferência multidisciplinar onde aborda transversalmente o que de mais inovador e diferenciador se faz em oncologia.