World Cancer Day – Feb 4th

Have you found the cure for cancer yet?

Inevitably, when we meet new people who are interested in our work at the Australian Cancer Research Foundation, we get asked the same question.

“Have you found a cure yet?”

It’s the question on everyone’s lips. It’s what we’re all fighting for. But our response can often disappoint: “For which type of cancer?”

Cancer is an incredibly complex disease. It can be triggered by any number of environmental, behavioural and/or biological factors, and it can behave differently in each individual.

In 2013, World Cancer Day is about dispelling myths about cancer. Understanding your enemy is the first step to beating it, so on 4 February 2013 – World Cancer Day – we are being asked to seek the facts so that we can better understand this terrible disease.

The short answer to this common myth or question is that, unfortunately, we don’t have ‘a cure’. But we do have ‘cures’.

• Survival rates are increasing, and cancer patients’ quality of life is significantly improving.
• We have better treatment options, incredibly sophisticated diagnostic methods and many ways that we can, as much as possible, prevent different types of cancer.
• We have a cervical cancer vaccine – a treatment which the ACRF was proud to fund in its early development stages. We have biomarkers that indicate whether surgical procedures for pancreatic cancer are going to be successful, or whether alternative treatment should be sought. We have new, promising therapies for Leukaemia and Melanoma currently undergoing advanced clinical trials.

The ACRF funds research into all of these types of cancers, and more. We don’t just fund the big headline cancers either – recently awarding $3.5 million to research specifically dedicated to rare cancer types.

At the ACRF, we want to defeat cancer for future generations. Since there is no one type of cancer, we fund research into them all. Research is the key to beating cancer, and your donation will go straight to Australian cancer scientists, providing them with the technologies and resources they need to speed up cancer discoveries.

This World Cancer Day, you can help us learn more about our enemy.

Please support our world cancer day campaign, donate online today.