Fears that lack of awareness, fundraising are leaving ‘forgotten’ cancers behind

“Neglected” cancers have been overlooked after years of community attention on diseases such as breast, bowel and prostate cancer, with fears that research and fundraising for other forms of the illness are being left behind.

Doctors want to raise more awareness of neglected forms of cancer. File image

Doctors and patients with “neglected” cancers are pushing to gain greater attention, research and treatments typically bestowed on more prominent forms of the disease.

While years of widespread community attention have seen huge gains in the treatment of diseases such as breast, bowel and prostate cancer, concerns are rising that other forms of the disease are being left behind.

Leading Australian doctors, researchers and lobbyists will meet today to increase focus on digestive cancers, which strike almost 30,000 Australians a year and remain among the most deadly forms of the disease.

GI Cancer Institute chair Professor Tim Price said the gathering would try to accelerate progress for people with a gastrointestinal cancer, outlining priorities for diseases which are disproportionably represented in current research programs.

“The community feels engaged in trying to prevent, treat and cure breast cancer, whereas it is very hard to gain traction around a lot of the other cancers,” Prof Price said.

Generic photo to illustrate breast exam for breast cancer. Picture: iStock

“When we start to look at research that is funded by donations and fundraising, that is where there is a big block.

“Most people will have a friend or family member who has breast cancer and mammograms screening is very prominent in the community so there is all that understanding.

“But there isn’t the understanding around these rarer cancers so nobody feels engaged and there is difficulty in getting donations.”

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Of the eight cancers with the highest mortality rates, three — pancreas, liver and oesophagus — all stem from gastrointestinal areas. The group also includes six of the 12 cancers with the lowest five-year survival rates.

As a joint venture with the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Clinical Trials Centre, the gathering in Sydney today hopes to highlight areas of unmet need in terms of clinical trials so patients can gain access to the next-generation treatments.

“The aim is to look around innovative trials that we can more to the next step though fundraisers, grant foundations, governments, Cancer Australia,” Prof Price said.

“We are trying to put together clever, proactive practice-changing studies that will engage government and so forth to then move to the next step.”

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