Monday, August 2, 2010, Gustave-Roussy Institute, in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne). At 29, Sabrina Le Bars, a mother of several days, asked to hide the mirror in her hospital room. After a fourteen-hour operation for head and neck cancer, she says she doesn’t want to see her “broken mouth”.

Thirteen years later, Saturday December 16, 2023, in Vincennes (Val-de-Marne). In a little black cocktail dress, same warm smile, famous the Corasso Association, founded in 2014 with another patient, Christine Fauquembergue, on the advice of two specialists in these pathologies, François Janot, surgeon at the Gustave-Roussy, and Anne-Catherine Baglin, anatomopathologist at the Foch Hospital in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine). . At that time, the main aim was to free people from loneliness who had undergone surgery for these little-known cancers that could settle in the sinuses, oral cavity, throat, larynx, etc. “A patient had just committed suicideremembers Sabrina Le Bars. After such an operation, everything the surgeon does is externally visible. The voice changes, we touch the identity. Everyone has to learn to reconstruct a new image. »

The private group “Corasso can be exchanged” created by the association on Facebook has already borne fruit: this December evening, parades are taking place on screens dressed in pop colors credentials of patients who no longer hide. Some of them were already there in 2018 “What my face? »a stunt in which they announced the title Johnny Hallyday in front of the camera. “Sabrina Le Bars has broken a taboo by revolutionizing communication around this desocializing cancerappreciates Sylvie Boisramé, director of the Training and Research Unit (UFR) for Dentistry of Western Brittany in Brest. The association’s measures have already led to a change in the population’s view of patients. »

Horribly banal first signs

Last September, the university professor and practitioner of oral surgery at the hospital, together with her ENT colleagues, organized a screening day during which Emilie Carré, Corasso’s secretary, spoke to future dental surgeons. The 26-year-old was diagnosed with cancer in 2020, she says. “After five unsuccessful doctor visits where I received prescriptions for cough syrup”. Sabrina Le Bars wants to increase the number of volunteers speaking to health professionals. “Visual evidence is much more powerful than theoryShe says. It unfilteredly exposes the often disabling, even disabling and very visible consequences of a late diagnosis. So much so that it’s hard to forget such moments. »

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