• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Lack of Studies Being Presented on Pancreatic Cancer at American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting Spotlights Need for More Research Into This Deadly Disease

Posted on: Thursday, 1 June 2006, 09:00 CDT

LOS ANGELES, June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Statement from Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) President and CEO Julie Fleshman:

"Pancreatic cancer is currently the nation's fourth leading cause of cancer death and it has about a 99 percent mortality rate. This year alone, 34,000 Americans are expected to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, 32,000 of whom are not expected to survive.

At this week's American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Atlanta, Ga., hundreds of studies on cancer will be unveiled. Unfortunately, too small a percentage of these studies focus on pancreatic cancer when related to the disease's toll on society. In fact, pancreatic cancer studies make up approximately a quarter of the number of studies being presented on breast and prostate cancers combined. This needs to change.

With pancreatic cancer surpassing prostate cancer in number of deaths annually -- primarily due to advances in diagnostic testing and therapies for prostate cancer -- we at the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network are encouraging increased funding for pancreatic cancer and encouraging researchers to focus on pancreatic cancer in order to spur much-needed discovery of new treatments and diagnostics for patients. We know that it is only through the continuing hard work of scientists and researchers that we will uncover tools that will help diagnose patients earlier and improve survival through advances in treatment.

We certainly applaud the work of leading oncologists, nurses, researchers and advocates being featured at ASCO this year. At the same time, we're not seeing a tremendous amount of new data, specifically in the treatment and detection of pancreatic cancer. This tells us there's more work to be done, and reinforces the need for more research and more funding.

To that end, PanCAN is dedicated to funding the careers of young scientists in order to encourage investigators to make pancreatic cancer research their career path. We are excited to be teaming up with the ASCO Foundation for the fourth year in a row to present one new Career Development Award and one new Young Investigator Award this year. These awards are a way for PanCAN to play our part in growing the pool of young scientists with a specific focus on pancreatic cancer research.

Pancreatic cancer is currently the fourth leading cancer killer in the U.S. However, this particular cancer is the least federally funded of all major cancers, receiving only a fraction of the amount of research dollars needed to find new treatments and diagnostic tools that could increase survivorship. In the wake of the Bush Administration's recent proposal to cut cancer research funding in 2007 by $40 million, PanCAN continues to focus our efforts on encouraging scientists to research treatments and diagnostics, while raising awareness in several areas, including policy, advocacy, and research. History has shown us that every time funding has been increased for a particular cancer, survival rates increase. We need to turn the tide on pancreatic cancer, and soon.

In the past five years, we have seen a positive trend in the growing interest in pancreatic cancer from researchers, which is a direct result of increased funds for the disease since PanCAN began its advocacy efforts in 1999. However, we also know that the disease needs more funding to advance the science. We hope that investigators continue to study pancreatic cancer, and that this will translate into more encouraging pancreatic cancer studies being presented at this prestigious meeting in the near future."

Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN)

CONTACT: Brooke Saltzer, +1-202-955-6222, ext. 2520,bsaltzer@spectrumscience.com, for Pancreatic Cancer Action Network

Web site: http://www.pancan.org/

Source: PRNewswire

More News in this Category