ASTUCE Spain celebrates that CCAA offer TTFields

ASTUCE Spain celebrated that communities such as Andalusia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Community of MadridValencian Community, Galicia, Castilla y León, Murcia Region, Aragón, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura have already effectively implemented access to TTFields in public healthcare, allowing newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients who meet clinical criteria to receive this innovative therapy.

However, it warns that implementation is being uneven and there are regions, such as the Balearic Islands, where patients are being victims of an administrative traffic jam.

Glioblastoma has a median of survival of just 14.6 months with the standard treatmentwhich had not changed in more than two decades until the arrival of TTFields. Various clinical studies have shown that its combined use with maintenance chemotherapy can significantly prolong survival without detriment to quality of life, which is why this therapy is already part of the standard of treatment in other countries, such as Germany, France, Japan or the United States, and is recommended by international and national guidelines, such as those of the NCCN and SEOM-GEINO.

The alternating electric field therapy (TTFields) was incorporated into the Common Services Portfolio of the National Health System in August 2025 for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients, which was a decisive step to ensure equity in access to treatments that can prolong survival for patients with the most aggressive primary brain tumor with the worst prognosis.

“For months, at ASTUCE we have denounced that access to TTFields depended on the zip code. Today, we can say that there are communities that have shown that things can be done well and on time, and that there are already patients benefiting from it,” he said. José Luis Mantaspresident of ASTUCE Spain. “Its deployment in these regions demonstrates that its application is viable when there are protocols, clear instructions, communication and agility in the administrative process,” he adds and recalls that “this new therapy prolongs survival when it is administered at the right time, which is when it is prescribed, not months later due to administrative processes.”

“Stuck” communities

Despite the progress recorded in these communities, ASTUCE Spain insists that the implementation of the TTFields continues being unequal in the national territory, which continues to generate situations of inequality between patients with the same disease and the same clinical needs.

“The experience of these communities shows that we are not talking about clinical barriers, but rather about administrative processes,” emphasizes Mantas. “When the administration and hospital centers coordinate, patients reach treatment. When they don’t, the clock continues running against them.” This is the case of Balearic Islands that, after expediting treatment for the first patient as soon as the ministerial resolution was published in August, access to the TTFields remains blocked by an administrative traffic jam that prevents new patients from starting treatment, despite the fact that the therapy is included in the SNS Services Portfolio.

“The Balearic Islands were the first community to implement the resolution and, in fact, it had the first patient treated with TTFields in Spain after its inclusion in the SNS. However, since then, no other patients have been able to access it. We find patients who meet the clinical criteria, but who continue waiting for authorizations that do not arrive, without a clear explanation,” explains the president of ASTUCE Spain.

In this sense, the association remembers that, in order to benefit from TTFields, patients must be in the maintenance chemotherapy phase, which means that any administrative delay could permanently exclude them from this therapeutic option. “The delay is not only compromising the benefits for patients – since the sooner they start, the better the results are likely to be – but if any of the patients who are waiting finish their last cycle of chemotherapy, they will no longer be able to start electric field therapy, which could prolong their survival.”

Real and homogeneous implementation

ASTUCE Spain calls on regional administrations and hospital management to guarantee homogeneous and effective implementation of TTFields throughout the national territory, with clear protocols known by health professionals.

“It is not enough for a therapeutic innovation to be approved on paper,” concludes Mantas. “It is essential that it reaches patients on time. We celebrate the progress, but we will continue to be vigilant and raise our voices where bureaucracy continues to put people’s lives at risk.”