An inspiring awareness and fundraising campaign is set to be launched across East Anglia by Cancer Research UK, as new figures released today show that the death rate from cancer in the region has dropped by nearly a quarter since the 1990s.
Every year, around 30,300 people are diagnosed with cancer in the East of England.
Research has proved to be the key factor in reducing the number of lives lost to cancer, with improved knowledge about preventing the disease, surgical techniques, precisely targeted radiotherapy and more effective drugs all boosting the outcome for patients.
Death rates show that the proportion of people in the UK who are dying of cancer has fallen dramatically even though more people are being diagnosed with the disease. The rising number of diagnoses is largely due to the UK's ageing population and cancer being more common in older people.
In 1990, 220 in every 100,000 people in the UK died of cancer. Thanks to research improving the outcome for patients, this fell overall by 22 per cent to 170 per 100,000 in 2011.
The importance of research into the causes of cancer is demonstrated by the big falls in the number of people diagnosed with lung cancer as a result of fewer men smoking.
The link between tobacco and lung cancer was confirmed through ground breaking research in the 1950s. Death rates for the disease in the UK have dropped by two fifths in the last 20 years.
But more research is still needed to develop more effective lung cancer treatments. This will give people who are diagnosed with the disease a much better chance of being cured as survival remains among the lowest of any cancer.
For more information, visit Cancer Research UK