CANCER IS A GLOBAL DISEASE - the international impact of the work of Cancer Research UK
Cancer is a global crisis in urgent need of global solutions. Every year, more
than 14 million people across the world are given the devastating news that
they have cancer, and over 8 million lose their lives to the disease, making
it the leading cause of death worldwide.
Cancer Research UK is the largest charitable funder of cancer research in
the world. From discovery research through to clinical trials, we work tirelessly
to prevent, control and cure over 200 types of cancer. As well as scientific
research, we work with governments, health professionals, and patients to
improve outcomes for cancer patients across the globe.
Our strategy is built on the principles of people, partnership, and collaboration,
and the impact of our work reaches far beyond the UK. No single organisation
or country is going to beat cancer on its own. And that’s why we are committed
to working with organisations across the world to achieve our ambitious vision
of bringing forward the day when all cancers are cured.
Here are just a few examples of how CRUK is making an impact on people in France
Collaborating to create data
By working across borders, we can gather more information about cancer than ever before. Our collaborations with France, and other countries, are allowing the world’s leading cancer researchers to share data and expertise.
EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition)
EPIC is the world’s largest ever study of diet and health. Cancer Research UK is co-funding this work in partnership with leading European research organisations funders from countries including Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands. With over half a million participants in ten European countries, EPIC is uncovering links between diet, lifestyle, environment and cancer. The diverse programme of research is tackling wide-ranging questions – from the benefits of the ‘Mediterranean diet’ in reducing cancer incidence, to pinning down the links between alcohol and cancer.
Cancer Core Europe
CRUK’s Cambridge Cancer Research Institute has joined together with five other leading European cancer research centres, including France's largest cancer centre the Gustave Roussy to form Cancer Core Europe. The consortium aims to accelerate the impact of scientific discoveries for people with cancer. Through the consortium, our Cambridge researchers will now share data, expertise and resources with European allies, creating a formidable team tackling the biggest questions in cancer research.
Cancer Core Europe is structured into six ‘task forces’, made up of world experts from diverse scientific disciplines. Each task force will take on a particular hot-topic in cancer research, and work together to identify challenges, share ideas and launch new collaborative research projects. For example, the Imaging task force is working to develop new ways of visualising cancer, ultimately improving the way we diagnose cancer and monitor how well treatments are working.
International Cancer Genome Project
Cancer Research UK are a founding member of a ground-breaking global
collaboration called the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC). The
collaboration involves 88 project teams in countries including France,
Germany, Italy, China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the US and the UK.
The goal of ICGC is to analyse more than 25,000 individual tumours to build
a database of the genetic changes seen in 50 types of cancer. This valuable
information is already helping us to better understand the underlying biology
of cancer so we can develop tests to spot it much earlier, and so that we can
target treatments to tackle it more effectively. Because it’s a global project,
we can share expertise, resources and workload to build the database quickly
and accurately in a way that benefits many countries.
Clinical trials across borders
International collaboration allows more patients to take part in ground-breaking
clinical trials, designed to test new options for rare and hard to treat cancers.
The International Rare Cancers Initiative (IRCI)
The global project supports the development of international clinical trials for rare cancers. One of the barriers to treating patients with rare cancers is that it’s often hard to find enough patients for a clinical trial in one country alone, so this collaboration is critical. The initiative is a strategic collaboration between CRUK, the National Institute for Health Research Cancer Research Network (NCRN), the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and the French National Institute of Cancer (INCa).
As part of this collaboration, patients in France are participating in a large number of clinical trials.
Revolutionising treatment – The ESPAC trials
Professor Neoptolemos is perhaps best known for establishing and leading the European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer (ESPAC), an ongoing series of high-profile clinical trials that have had a tremendous impact on the treatment of people with pancreatic cancer across the world. Through these trials Professor Neoptolemos’ team have made numerous breakthroughs in pancreatic cancer research.
ESPAC-1 was the largest clinical trial in pancreatic cancer at the time and, on completion in 2004, it became the first to significantly improve patient survival. The team showed that by combining surgery and chemotherapy, the number of people surviving pancreatic cancer for at least five years could be almost trebled.
Cancer Research UK is currently funding two of the teams’ latest trials, ESPAC-4 and ESPAC-5. ESPAC-4 has included more than 700 patients from France, Germany, Sweden and the UK, and last year, Professor Neoptolemos revealed the first results. The trial examines whether, following surgery for pancreatic cancer, it is better to treat patients with a combination therapy – two different chemotherapy drugs together – or one drug alone. Amazingly, they found that the combination therapy helped an additional 13% of patients to survive for at least five years.
These fantastic first results reflect the significance of ESPAC-4, giving hope to people with pancreatic cancer around the world. But there is still a lot of work to do; people on the trial must still be monitored for several more years to study the effects of the new treatments on their long-term health.
On a much more local level, CRUK provides leaflets and information in English to a number of organisations in France, including La Federation Unicancer, La Ligue Nationale Contre Le Cancer and Cancer Support France, of which Cancer Support Group 06 is a member.
