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.

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.