Mr Harper said that in 2016, 24% of the 33,000 cancers diagnosed in Victoria were cancers with 5-year survival of less than 50%.
“The lack of funding for research can mean there is very little or no treatment options, which leads to a loss of ‘hope’ for people with low survival cancers. For some cancers there has been very little improvement in treatment and research in the past few decades.
“This funding, and continued investment into the future, will provide hope to patients and their families that treatments will be available, with potential for more treatment improvements in the coming decade.”
Cancer Council Victoria has also announced two post-doctoral fellowships into low-survival cancers today, to the amount of $151,000, to support Victorian scientists who have recently completed a PhD.
To find out more about low survival cancers visit: www.cancervic.org.au/research/forgottencancersprogram