Cancer without taboo in an exhibition in Paris

It took audacity to tackle this sensitive subject – and delicacy. The exhibition, which opens on September 6 at the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie, in Paris, deals with one of the most dreaded chronic diseases, cancer – or rather cancers. “With a thousand new people diagnosed every day in France, cancer is a social phenomenon. “, emphasizes Laurence Caunezil, co-curator of this exhibition, designed in partnership with the National Cancer Institute (INCa) – the first of this scale on this disease which is still too often taboo. “It’s a medical and scientific subject, but it’s also an intimate subject that involves people. »

The course begins with a rather dizzying perspective. Cancer, we discover, appeared half a billion years ago, with the advent of multicellular organisms. The price to pay for this innovation which has led cells to specialise, strengthening the adaptive capacities of living beings. But the cancerous cells, by proliferating to excess, have lost the sense of the common good, that of the organism.

The explosion of diagnosis

The exhibition then offers five audiovisual programs, at the forefront of knowledge but very educational. The first retraces the gradual steps that transform a healthy cell into a cancerous cell and then a metastatic one. As they accumulate, deleterious mutations make “ snowball”, overflowing the repair systems of the cells.

The floor is then given to the patients and their relatives, who tell the explosion of the diagnosis. “The greatest anxiety is during the announcement. Many feelings are mixed, including anger »testifies Daniel, whose wife was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 28.

But how to fight against the monster? A series of short videos presents the weapons under study, each being narrated by one of the researchers who forge it. How, for example, to target fibroblasts, these cells associated with various tumours, in order to restore the effectiveness of certain therapies? Fatima Mechta-Grigoriou, from the Institut Curie, in Paris, explains it to us.

Testimonials from caregivers

Then the exhibition reviews the arsenal of available treatments. Four patients tell their story of care, enlightened by the doctors who follow them: a woman who is finishing her chemotherapy for breast cancer, a man cured of prostate cancer, a woman whose treatment for lung cancer has failed, a man with recurrent colon cancer. All, however, are performed by actors, for ethical reasons.

You have 24.48% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.