Half a million lives saved in 30 years thanks to cancer research
- Tuesday, July 09, 2013
- by
- Unknown
Research has led to an improved
understanding of the biology and causes of cancer. This in turn has led to
discovering better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease - all
helping to save lives.
Some of the landmark advances in
treatment include tamoxifen for breast cancer, cisplatin for testicular cancer
– both things Cancer Research UK researchers played key roles in. And many
deaths have been prevented thanks to the national cancer screening programmes,
and to the drop in smoking rates due to better awareness and changes to tobacco
legislation – all informed by Cancer Research UK studies.
As the advances accelerate,
researchers are already laying the foundations for the next generation of
cancer treatments that will save millions of lives worldwide. These include
personalised medicine where patients will have treatment tailored to their
cancer, immunotherapy which harnesses the immune system to target cancer,
better radiotherapy and improved surgery.
Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer
Research UK’s chief clinician, said: “Significant progress has been made in
improving the outcome for cancer patients, but we’re not done yet. These
encouraging figures highlight the reduction we’ve seen in the number of people
dying from cancer since the 1980s. Our world class researchers have led the way
in pioneering discoveries that lead to better ways of treating cancer patients
whether through improved surgical techniques, state of the art radiotherapy or
dynamic new drugs.
“I run trials using the body’s own
immune system to fight cancer – this was science fiction in the 1980s.
Over the coming decades we will see these improvements snowball as
research delivers more tools into the hands of doctors to beat cancer.”
Dr Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research
UK’s chief executive, said: “It’s not widely realised that all our research is
funded through the generosity of the public. It is thanks to their
donations, large and small, that we have been able to make such good progress.
“But there is still much more to be
done. It’s no mean feat to help save a million lives from cancer. But we want
to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured and to continue that
progress we need everyone’s help.”
The charity is calling on everyone
to help beat cancer sooner by collectively taking a million actions against
cancer over the next six weeks. From signing up to an event or sharing cancer
signs and symptoms information to becoming a Citizen Scientist and classifying
cells, there are lots of ways to get involved.
To find out more about Cancer
Research UK’s campaign encouraging people across the UK to take one million
actions to ‘Beat Cancer Sooner’,
Source: www.cruk.org/1millionactions.
