It’s sobering to learn that each year around 150-thousand people will be diagnosed with cancer.
The statistics should make Australians sit up and take notice, and the figures only tell part of the story.
One in two Australian men and women will be diagnosed with cancer by the age of 85.
But when faced with cancer, Western Australians rally around each other and there’s often a team of people behind someone fighting cancer, supporting them at every step.
There’s another team of people also behind cancer patients and survivors, helping to shake up cancer treatment. A team of more than 450 researchers and clinicians who aren’t taking no for an answer are tackling some of the most stubborn cancers that won’t currently respond to available treatments.
The Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research based in Perth is one of the nation’s leading adult medical research centres, where this team work passionately together to defeat the major diseases that impact the community.
The world class scientists, doctors and researchers at The Perkins won’t be satisfied until survival rates improve for some of the most aggressive and toughest to treat cancers. Like the almost 4-thousand new cases of head and neck cancer diagnosed in Australia each year, which have a five-year survival rate of just nine per cent.
The Perkins is focused on these deadly cancers and has 15 out of 21 labs that are devoted to cancer, with a focus on finding kinder, more effective treatments with better outcomes for people living with the most difficult to treat cancers.
The Perkins’ cancer research team can’t do it all on its own, needing both community and financial support.
Cancer costs more than $4.5 billion in direct health system costs The Perkins team is seeking to raise some of these vital funds from its major fundraiser and Australia’s largest community cycling ride for charity, the MACA Cancer200.
A donation drive is now on to help fund ground-breaking research to tackle the most stubborn of cancers.
The MACA Cancer200, on October 26-27 is a 200-kilomentre ride from Perth to Mandurah and back, starting and finishing at Perth’s iconic Optus Stadium, with thousands of entrants ready to ride and keen to make a difference.
You can support riders and the Perkins Institute by visiting www.cancer200.org.au and making a donation to this extremely important research.
