10 year survival rates improving for most cancers but sadly not pancreatic cancer
On World Cancer Day, Cancer Research UK released new statistics to show that cancer deaths are falling with ten year survival rates of some cancers improving significantly since 1971.
It is of course fantastic to see such an increase in survival rates with testicular cancer rates increasing from 69% to 98%, and 57% of patients diagnosed with bowel cancer, which used to have one of the lowest survival rates, will now survive ten years. As you can see in the graph below, many cancers have much better survival rates.
Sadly though, the same can not be said about pancreatic cancer. In the UK, deaths from pancreatic cancer have increased by 8% in the last decade, and ten year survival rates remain at a shockingly low 1%.
Pancreatic cancer receives just 1.4 per cent of Britain’s cancer research spending!
The media attributed this completely shocking situation to the fact that pancreatic cancer is diagnosed too late. As a charity who focus on early diagnosis, we are all too aware of this problem, which is why we fund awareness campaigns and GP educational programmes.
However, one of the reasons that many cancer survival rates have improved significantly is because of huge investment in research and awareness campaigns for other cancers.
If you would like to support our campaign for more funding, please write to your MP today, to highlight the issues.
We have a dedicated way to find and contact your MP: http://write.pancreaticcanceraction.org/.
You can use this template letter if you wish: MP-template-letter10yearsurvivalrates
As always, thank you for your support!
Pancreatic Cancer Action