Ines Vaz Luis, doctor at Gustave-Roussy hospital in Villejuif, rewarded at the largest world cancer congress

You have to imagine a huge glass building. Endless aisles. Meeting rooms as far as the eye can see. In Chicago, 50,000 people, including 35,000 doctors, walk through the convention center where the congress of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the world’s largest oncology gathering, is being held until Tuesday June 4. Every morning, everyone takes an escalator which runs alongside the black and white portrait of a woman with a determined smile: Ines Vaz Luis, who has become a face of the fight against cancer.

If she is thus in the spotlight, it is because this Portuguese doctor who has worked for ten years at the Gustave-Roussy hospital in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) received, on Saturday, a prestigious distinction, the prize of mentoring Women Who Conquer Cancer, which in a way designates the woman of the year in oncology, and which she shares with an American counterpart. “This award here is a bit like the Golden Ball in football. That’s impressive!”proudly proclaims Professor Fabrice André, director of research at Gustave-Roussy, who came to applaud the researcher during her rise on the American scene.

At 44, Ines Vaz Luis, a specialist in breast cancer, stands out internationally for her work on quality of life during and after the disease. Predicting fatigue during treatments, reducing all toxicities, initiating the resumption of social and professional life… So many fields which were very little explored a few years ago and which she has made her specialty. “I don’t just want to treat cancer, but the patient as a whole. That’s what drives me and drives me: to help people get through this ordeal better.she assures franceinfo. The post-cancer phase begins with the diagnosis of the disease.”.

To his credit, in particular, work around artificial intelligence to assess the fatigue of women treated for breast cancer and implement strategies to avoid it. Studies on the obstacles to taking treatments regularly. Or the coordination of Canto, a large platform for discovering the biological mechanisms involved in the development of side effects in patients with breast and lung cancer, with the aim of reducing the after-effects.

“Today, we can take advantage of technological and digital revolutions to advance the human side of treatments. Why deprive ourselves of this?”she asks. “On these issues, she is a pioneer”, assures Fabrice André. A pioneer who is already in transmission: when we talk to her about herself, she responds with “We” collective of the team of specialists that she leads at Gustave-Roussy and whose work she praises. At the Chicago congress, several of their scientific publications were noted. One of them concerns the early detection of depressive symptoms in patients, in order to better prevent this risk over time. Another focused on inequalities in access to remote monitoring, even though it is an important element of care.

“All of this can change the lives of patients, insists Ines Vaz Luis. Today, the health system is too paternalistic. It must be replaced by a more participatory model, where the patient is a key player.”, she pleads, as a nod to the title she received. What does this women’s prize inspire in her? “It touches me because it rewards being a mentor to other women”. When she received it, she thought of her colleagues, her patients, her two children, and perhaps a little more of her seven-year-old daughter, to whom she will explain that “Nothing in life is impossible.”

This recognition should also be useful in her search for funding for the projects she has in mind. Her dream: to set up a large study of 5,000 women to assess the proportion of those who could do without chemotherapy, and settle for less severe therapies. A “therapeutic de-escalation” for cancers with a good prognosis. Always with the idea of ​​improving the lives of patients.