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Liver Cancer Appeal

Primary liver cancer isn’t often in the spotlight but nevertheless its statistics are truly shocking. The number of people dying from it has quadrupled over the past 40 years, with 4,000 deaths in the UK alone last year. And whilst survival rates for other types of cancer have improved, only around 20% of people with primary liver cancer live for at least one year after diagnosis and just 1 in 20 people survive at least five years.

It can be hard to diagnose primary liver cancer at an early stage and often by the time it is, surgery is no longer an option. At this stage there is just one drug treatment each for both the two main types of primary liver cancer and unfortunately for most patients neither treatment is effective for long.

That’s why we desperately need to discover and develop new treatments and why we have launched an appeal to help us do that.

The ICR’s Dr Chiara Braconi and her team are undertaking research to understand the mechanism that controls how patients with liver cancer respond to treatment. This knowledge could allow us to devise a simple blood test that could predict who will respond well to treatment and help us develop alternative options for those that don’t.

Dr Braconi says, “The ICR has an outstanding track record in discovering and developing new treatments for a range of cancers, including those not often in the spotlight. And with your help, I’m confident that there will be a brighter future for people with primary liver cancer; that in my clinic I’ll be able to offer a wider range of more targeted, more effective treatment options.”

Please donate today