TEHRAN (Iran News) –Iran has started production of a drug internationally used for treatment of cancer at home which will save the country five million dollars annually.

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“This cancer detection system is helpful in highly accurate and timely diagnosis of cancer,” IRNA quoted Abdolreza Pazuki, the IUMS president, as saying.

Cancers are the leading cause of premature mortality in the country, according to the Ministry and Health.

Based on the surveys conducted in the last 30 years, breast cancer has the highest prevalence, 12 percent, among women in the country, constituting 26 percent of women’s cancers.

In Iran, breast cancer is the second-leading cause of death in women as around 30 percent of patients die each year, nearly as much as the world average.

Earlier detection of cancer increases the chance of successful treatment and survival.

Plan to prevent three most common cancers among women

In February 2023, the Ministry of Health launched a plan aimed at preventing the three most common cancers among women, namely breast, colorectal, and cervical cancers.

These cancers are the most preventable and at the same time they account for 40 percent of cancers among women and 25 percent of cancers both among men and women, ISNA quoted Ali Qanbari-Motlaq, a health ministry official, as saying.

The pilot phase of the plan was carried out in 2016 and 2017, he said, adding that in 2018, the development plan of the first phase started.

He pointed out that almost 150,000 people in the country are diagnosed with cancer every year.

Countries are divided into five categories for cancer incidence, and Iran is at the average level in this regard, he noted.

55% of premature death caused by cancer

Cancers account for more than 55 thousand deaths annually. Some 34 thousand deaths out of 122 thousand premature deaths (under 70 years of age) and 11 thousand deaths out of 85 thousand very premature deaths (under 50 years of age) are caused by various cancers.

The latest national cancer census shows that the number of new cancer cases in Iran is expected to increase to 160,000 by the Iranian calendar year 1404 (March 2025-March 2026), indicating an increase of 43 percent.

About 29 percent increase in cancers in Iran at that time will be related to changes in the demographic structure of Iran that is population growth and aging, and 14 percent is due to the development and aggravation of factors that increase cancers.

The most predicted rise in new cases of cancer in Iran during 1404 compared to 1395 (ended on March 20, 2017) will be thyroid cancer (114 percent), prostate (67 percent), breast (63 percent), colon (54 percent), ovary (51 percent), lung (49 percent), non-hodgkin’s lymphoma (45 percent), brain and spine (40 percent), stomach (30 percent), bladder (26 percent) and blood cancer (24 percent).

The first 10 most common cancers in Iran are breast, prostate, colon, stomach, lung, bladder, thyroid, uterus, brain, and spine cancers.

The most common cancers of Iranian women include breast, colon, thyroid, stomach, uterine, leukemia, ovary, brain and spine, lungs and esophagus.

Around 250,000 Iranians are now living with cancer. Half of cancers can be almost treated and the rest can be avoided.

National cancer control program

With the support of the World Health Organization, the national cancer control program has been developed, which sets out the Ministry of Health’s roadmap up to the Iranian calendar year 1404 (March 2025-March 2026).

The purpose of the program is to reduce cancer prevalence and mortality while improving the quality of patients’ lives, which can serve as a model for other countries, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

The program includes two important documents, namely, “development of national cancer care network” and “development of cancer human resources”, which resulted in the establishment of the early diagnostic centers.

Achievements in cancer treatment

In January, an Iranian knowledge-based company announced readiness to meet the needs of regional countries as well as North Africa for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.

HPV is known to cause cervical cancer in women.

The product has been manufactured at a much lower price, 75 percent cheaper, compared to foreign samples.

Producing the HPV vaccine needs one of the most complicated technologies in the world, and Iran has been able to produce the vaccine domestically.

Passing quality control tests and pre-clinical trials, the clinical trial of the HPV vaccine started in 2019 on healthy volunteers.

Once the vaccine proved its safety and effectiveness in increasing the antibody titer, it obtained the Food and Drug Organization’s approval to enter the market in 2020.

In September 2023, an Iranian knowledge-based company succeeded in producing ‘ibrutinib’ which is used to treat various blood cancers, making the country the third producer of the medication in the world.

Now Iran, India, and China are the only three countries in the world that have the high-tech knowledge to produce ibrutinib and necessary raw material, IRNA reported.

In August 2023, a group of researchers, led by an Iranian scientist, successfully analyzed the chemical composition of individual human cells.

This method can help with an earlier detection of cancer and a more efficient treatment, according to Mehr News Agency.

Iran to become a leading country in AI

Iran ranks 17th in artificial intelligence in terms of scientific production and publication of articles in the world, while ranks 78th in terms of its application in the world, Rouhollah Dehqani-Firouzabadi, Vice President for Science, Technology and Knowledge-based Economy, has said.

The Vice Presidency has prepared three comprehensive plans to develop artificial intelligence in different sectors.

Currently, artificial intelligence is the first priority for the development of technology and is pursued with three programs, IRNA quoted Firouzabadi as saying

Artificial intelligence is a comprehensive technology and affects all other areas of technology, he highlighted.

“The plans in the field of artificial intelligence include scientific development programs that are mostly pursued in universities. The second plan is technology development programs that are pursued in companies that work in the field of artificial intelligence. And the third plan is the creation of a national technology hub in the field of artificial intelligence.”

In January 2022, Shahram Moein, head of the innovation and development center of artificial intelligence at the Research Institute of Information and Communication Technology, said, “Iran will be placed among the top 10 countries in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2032 based on the national document on artificial intelligence strategy.”

The study of the national artificial intelligence development roadmap started two years ago at the Research Institute of Information and Communication Technology and was officially completed by the end of November 2021.

“To draft this document, strategic documents of 23 countries in the field of artificial intelligence were evaluated so that areas such as environment, health, transportation, online education, energy, robotics, industry, agriculture, and security development are among the priority areas of AI.

Among the goals of this document are 80 percent of research to meet the needs of the country, the use of 45 percent of artificial intelligence in industries, $8 billion investment in artificial intelligence, and a 12 percent share of AI in the GDP,” he explained.

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A malignant tumor is typically a diverse collection of cancer cells and immune cells. Although immune cells are responsible for fighting tumors, sometimes some of them change their behavior and collaborate with cancer cells.

This heterogeneity of cells poses a challenge in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. With only a small portion of cancer cells becoming resistant to chemotherapy or a group of immune cells taking on the role of tumor enhancers, cancer treatment can fail and there will be no more hope for the patient.

Conventional laboratory methods often do not have the capability to identify cellular diversity in biopsy samples, and unfortunately, until now, studying the chemical status of individual cells and differentiating them has not been possible. This makes the accurate and early diagnosis of cancers quite difficult and unmanageable.

In this regard, a research group led by Alireza Mashaghi, an Iranian physician, physical chemist, and a professor at Leiden University, has managed to perform a chemical analysis of individual human cells for the very first time in history.

The breakthrough, which is considered a milestone in the field of analytical chemistry, enables single-cell biopsies in laboratories. During the research, mass spectrometry and artificial intelligence were used to first measure the chemical molecules or metabolites of a human cell with high precision, and then extract the chemical patterns of different cells from complex spectral data. AI played a significant role during several steps of the research.

The new scientific advancement essentially enables the identification of anti-tumor immune cells as well as tumor enhancers.

Also, researchers were able to measure the chemical content of an immune cell called macrophage and accurately differentiate between tumor-suppressing or tumor-enhancing macrophages. This is the first time that metabolite measurement, or metabolomics, has been performed on an immune cell.

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These cancers are the most preventable cancers and at the same time they account for 40 percent of cancers among women and 25 percent of cancers both among men and women, ISNA quoted Ali Qanbari-Motlaq, a health ministry official, as saying.

The pilot phase of the plan was carried out in 2016 and 2017, he said, adding that in 2018, the development plan of the first phase started.

He pointed out that almost 150,000 people in the country are diagnosed with cancer every year.

Countries are divided into five categories for cancer incidence, and Iran is at the average level in this regard, he noted.

World Cancer Day

World Cancer Day held every 4 February is the global uniting initiative led by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC).

By raising worldwide awareness, improving education, and catalyzing personal, collective, and government action, the initiative aims to encourage people work together to reimagine a world where millions of preventable cancer deaths are saved and access to life-saving cancer treatment and care is equitable for all – no matter who they or where they live.

Created in 2000, World Cancer Day has grown into a positive movement for everyone, everywhere to unite under one voice to face one of the greatest challenges in history.

Each year, hundreds of activities and events take place around the world, gathering communities, organizations, and individuals in schools, businesses, hospitals, marketplaces, parks, community halls, and places of worship – in the streets and online – acting as a powerful reminder that we all have a role to play in reducing the global impact of cancer.

While we live in a time of awe-inspiring advancements in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, many of us who seek cancer care hit barriers at every turn.

Income, education, geographical location, and discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, and lifestyle are just a few of the factors that can negatively affect care.

So, this year’s World Cancer Day’s theme, “Close the Care Gap”, is all about celebrating progress in its many forms that enable more people to seek and receive the care they need and deserve. It is about providing the momentum to fuel our fight for fairness.

CAR T-cell therapy

In November 2022, the first phase of a national project aiming to take advantage of gene therapy for the treatment of children with cancer, known as “CAR T-cell therapy”, came on stream.

The project was inaugurated in the presence of Ruhollah Dehghani Firoozabadi, the vice president for science and technology, IRNA reported.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a way to get immune cells called T cells (a type of white blood cell) to fight cancer by changing them in the lab so they can find and destroy cancer cells.

CAR T-cell therapy has been successful on a five-year-old boy suffering from chemotherapy-resistant leukemia.

The project took nearly seven years to be implemented, Amir Ali Hamidiyeh, head of the gene, cell, and tissue research institute of Tehran University of Medical Sciences said.

After passing cell studies and preclinical studies on animals and obtaining a license and code of ethics from Tehran University of Medical Sciences, a gene therapy product was used for a patient for the first time in the country, he added.

The method is currently in the clinical trial stage and was used on a child with leukemia who was resistant to all treatment methods, he highlighted.

National cancer control program

With the support of the World Health Organization, the national cancer control program has been developed, which sets out the Ministry of Health’s roadmap up to the Iranian calendar year 1404 (March 2025-March 2026).

The purpose of the program is to reduce cancer prevalence and mortality while improving the quality of patients’ lives, which can serve as a model for other countries, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

The program includes two important documents, namely, “development of national cancer care network” and “development of cancer human resources”, which resulted in the establishment of the early diagnostic centers.

First ion therapy center in West Asia

In July 2021, Iran inaugurated an advanced ion therapy center for the first time in West Asia, with the aim of providing definitive treatment for all types of cancer.

Ion therapy is a unique and innovative form of radiation therapy in the world for the treatment of cancer, as the radiation can be focused exactly on the area of the tumor, ensuring that radiation-sensitive organs are best protected.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization, said some 200 million Euros have been allocated to equip the center.

The center is unique in West Asia and is the seventh hospital in the world to be built with advanced equipment, he added.

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Gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the world and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. The main treatment for this disease in the early stages is surgery; radiotherapy and chemotherapy are supplemented if needed.

Because these treatments have different side effects, researchers are looking to find new medicine with fewer side effects. Examining plants to find effective compounds is one of these measures; Because plants have been the main source of discovery for various treatments for centuries, and various anti-cancer drugs have been made using herbal compounds.

Iranian scientists conducted research titled “Evaluation of the antioxidant and cytotoxic potential of hydroalcoholic extract of Perovskia abrotanoides in MKN45 cells of gastric cancer”, which showed that Provskia extract can significantly reduce live cancer cells; over time and with increasing concentration, cancer cell survival has decreased significantly.

Mahsa Iraji, Melika Sadeghi and Ali Khaleqian, researchers at the Medical School of Semnan University of Medical Sciences, participated in this research.

Medicinal plant Borazambol with the scientific name of Perovskia abrotanoides Karel. belongs to the family Lamiaceae. it is growing wild in the margin of mountainous roads of the arid and cold climate of North Iran. It is for a long time that indigenous people by different methods in traditional medicine use its products in preventing and curing diseases.

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MAHAK is an NGO that supports services for cancer-stricken children and their families in accordance with international standards, as a result, over 35,000 children with cancer have benefited from it during the past 30 years.

During the 30 years of work, the charity foundation has supported 2,438 refugee children in different parts of Iran.

Most of the refugees who refer to and get supported by MAHAK are from Afghanistan and the rest are from Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, Sharif Nezam Mafi, the CEO of MAHAK said.

Currently, children with cancer and their families in all public and university hospitals with pediatric hematology and oncology wards in 18 cities of Iran receive support services, he noted.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) which is also known as blood cancer is one of the most common cancers in children and if diagnosed early, its cure rate will increase significantly. The registered cases at MAHAK also indicate that blood cancer variation is the most frequent cancer among refugee children, as well.

The children and their families who have to travel far from their residences in order to receive proper treatment also receive full MAHAK coverage for travel and accommodation services similar to Iranian nationals.

Based on a memorandum of understanding signed in 2001, a part of treatment and support services expenses are covered by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

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Additionally, the results suggested that dietary fiber intake may decrease the risk of both premenopausal and postmenopausal breast cancers, cancernetwork.com reported.

“The reduction in risk appears to be similar for the intake of all sources of fiber (cereal, fruit, vegetable, and legume), although statistical significance was not reached, except for fruit fiber,” the authors wrote. “A high intake of fiber was [also] found to be inversely, but not significantly, associated with ER+/PR+ and ER-/PR- breast cancers.”

Researchers searched the MEDLINE and Excerpta Medica dataBASE (EMBASE) through July 2019 for prospective studies that reported on the association between fiber consumption and incident breast cancer. The pooled relative risk (RR) and 95 percent confidence intervals (CI) were then estimated by comparing the highest versus the lowest category of total and types of fiber consumption, using a random-effects meta-analysis.

According to the study, in the US, dietary fiber usually comes from whole grains and cereals (44.8 percent), vegetables (22.6 percent), fruits (11.1 percent), legumes, nuts, and seeds (7.2 percent), and other foods (14.3 percent). Given this substantial contribution of fiber sources to the American diet, the researchers expanded the analysis to include the intake of these different dietary sources of fiber as exposure variables.

Overall, the researchers identified 17 cohort studies, two nested case-control studies, and one clinical trial study. Total fiber consumption was found to be associated with an 8 percent lower risk of breast cancer (comparing the highest versus the lowest category, pooled RR, 0.92; 95 percent CI, 0.88-0.95 [I2 = 12.6 percent]). Moreover, soluble fiber was significantly inversely associated with risk of breast cancer (pooled RR, 0.90 [95 percent CI, 0.84-0.96; I2 = 12.6 percent]) and insoluble fiber was suggestively inversely associated with risk of breast cancer (pooled RR, 0.93 [95 percent CI, 0.86-1.00; I2 = 33.4 percent]).

Higher total fiber intake was correlated with a lower risk of both premenopausal and postmenopausal breast cancers (pooled RR, 0.82 [95 percent CI, 0.67-0.99; I2 = 35.2 percent] and pooled RR, 0.91 [95 percent CI, 0.88-0.95; I2 = 0.0 percent], respectively). Further, the researchers observed a nonsignificant inverse association between intake of total fiber and risk of both estrogen and progesterone receptor-positive and estrogen and progesterone receptor-negative breast cancers.

“Several biological mechanisms may explain the beneficial effects of dietary fiber on breast cancer risk. Fiber may decrease incident breast cancer by controlling blood glucose and improving insulin sensitivity,” the authors wrote. “In addition, fiber may increase serum concentrations of sex hormone-binding globulin, as well as affect the composition of intestinal microbiota and inhibit colonic β-D-glucuronidase activity. Thereby, dietary fiber may reduce deconjugation and reabsorption of estrogen, and then reduce circulating levels of estrogen.”

Notably, because the associations between fiber intake and breast cancer were evaluated mainly using prospective studies in North American and Europe, the findings may not be generalizable to other geographic regions, which may differ across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural factors. Additionally, the amounts in fiber intake in the highest and lowest categories were not consistent across studies.

“Although we found inverse associations between intake of different sources and type of fiber and breast cancer risk, only soluble fiber and fruit fiber demonstrated significant associations,” the authors wrote. “The current study findings support the American Cancer Society’s dietary guidelines to consume foods rich in total fiber, including fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.”

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