DRAFT (Add contact
details at the top and your comments at the end.)
WORLD CANCER DAY – MONDAY 4 FEBRUARY –
THE IMPACT OF BRAIN TUMOURS
Media Release.
Released by: …………………………………..
Contact: ……………………………………
Embargoed until midnight 3 February.
Monday 4 February is “World Cancer Day” during which people acknowledge the way in which a diagnosis of cancer impacts on our lives.
Brain tumours are one of the most devastating of all cancers, yet relatively little is known about them or their possible causes. Despite the continuing controversy there is no firm evidence yet that cell (mobile) phones cause brain tumours.
Brain tumours are not a major cancer in terms of numbers but when you evaluate them for their financial and mortality impact they jump high in the list to among the top four. They are one of the most lethal and devastating tumours in adults with one British study ranking the glioblastoma multiforme tumour as the highest of 17 malignancies based on its impact and average years of life lost.
In fact, among children under 15 years of age brain tumours compete with all leukaemia cancers as being responsible for the most deaths caused by cancer.
Brain tumours do not discriminate by sex, race, geography, age,
religion, or class. Famous people who have had brain tumours include actress
Elizabeth Taylor, investment banker Dan Case, film maker François Truffaut, churchman John
Cardinal O’Connor, educator Marshall McLuhan, composer George Gershwin,
According to
research commissioned by the International Brain Tumour Alliance (www.theibta.org) approximately 200,000
people worldwide will develop a malignant primary brain tumour each year.
Thousands more will
develop so-called benign brain tumours or metastatic brain tumours (from a
cancer elsewhere in the body).
There has been only
one significant treatment breakthrough in thirty years when in 2005 the
combination of the chemotherapy temozolomide (Temodal/Temodar) and radiation
therapy was shown to increase two-year survival in the highest grade
malignant glioma brain tumours.
In recent years
there have been further promising treatment avenues opened up but according to
Denis Strangman, Chair of the International Brain Tumour Alliance, “brain
tumours need a focus of attention equivalent to that placed on the AIDS/HIV
scourge that led to the treatment breakthrough of the anti retroviral drugs”.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX of
the local brain tumor support group
YYYYYYYYYYYYY said that their group existed as a support and sharing
opportunity for those living with a brain tumor and their caregivers ……………..
Interested people may contact ZZZZZZZ for more information.