1.5 billion pound cancer injection
- 00:01:27
- ITN
1.5 billion pound cancer injection
Cancer Research UK is investing £1.5 billion in the fight against the deadliest forms of the disease over the next five years. The charity will spend the money on core areas of science to reduce cancer deaths - including greater investment in those areas where survival rates remain poor, such as pancreatic, oesophageal and lung cancer. A spokeswoman said it would continue with its high quality research programmes to improve understanding of all cancers. "In the next five years, improvements in early detection and screening will be specifically targeted, enabling doctors to diagnose cancer earlier when it has a better chance of being successfully treated," she said. It will also establish up to 20 centres of excellence across the UK, linking research activities with patient care, public engagement and prevention initiatives. "Huge progress has been made in beating cancer over the past 30 years, both through reducing the number of people getting cancer in the first place and through doubling survival," Chief executive Harpal Kumar said. "This has had a significant impact on reducing the number of cancer deaths - and Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of this. "But progress has been faster in some areas than others. This strategy focuses our attention on those areas which will have the greatest impact on reducing cancer deaths in the future and on achieving our goals." Survival rates have improved for almost all the common cancers and in many cancer types the progress has been dramatic, the charity said. Breast cancer now has a 20 year survival rate of nearly 70 per cent. Testicular cancer, melanoma and Hodgkin's disease now all have ten year survival rates of more than 80 per cent. But only around 5 per cent of those with pancreatic, oesophageal or lung cancer will survive for this long. "Cancer Research UK already carries out significant research in these fields, but prognosis remains poor," the spokeswoman said.
ITN | November 28, 2008
