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Nani Roma, the first Spaniard to win the Dakar: He had to suffer from cancer alone

The Bladder Cancer section of the Vall d’Hebron Hospital, made up of doctors Carles Ravents, Albert Carrin, Fernando Lozano and nurse Natalia Pujala, has been a pioneer in Catalonia in intracorporeal bladder reconstruction using the Da Vinci robot. This machine allows the removal of the bladder to be minimally invasive.

The incidence of bladder cancer in Europe is 200,000 cases per year (12,000 in Spain). It is the fourth tumor with the highest incidence among men (behind that of the prostate, lung and colon) and the fifth in women, after that of the breast, lung, colon and uterus. Diagnosis in the initial state allows a survival probability of 80%. It drops to half in more advanced stages.

“The main risk factor for bladder cancer, present in 80% of cases, is tobacco. Both active and passive smokers. In the case of Nani Roma, a healthy person with no toxic habits, that factor does not exist. Neither is age, because it is a tumor that usually develops after 60-70 years. His cancer is not common in young people like him,” admits Dr. Lozano.

The same doctor points to another possibility: “The only risk factor that we have discussed with him is the issue of cars, of smoke from the exhaust pipe. They have been in contact for many years. Although Nani was in the passenger compartment of the vehicle, the contact It’s minor. And when he competed on motorcycles he did it in open spaces. In any case, the only identifiable risk factor would be that. He has always been in workshops, in contact with engines, with combustion. That smoke is also toxic and is related to bladder cancer. Although it is impossible to establish a cause.”

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