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Just three of Australia's 10 deadliest cancers receiving adequate funding: report

Xinhua, April 10, 2017 Adjust font size:

Just three of Australia's 10 deadliest cancers are receiving adequate funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), it was revealed Monday.

A Parliamentary inquiry into the funding model currently used by the NHMRC is analyzing "the need to ensure the funding model enables the provision of funding research into brain cancers and other low-survival-rate cancers".

Leukemia tops the funding list with more than 115 million Australian dollars (86.3 million US dollars) allocated to research between 2012 and 2016. It was followed by breast cancer with 112 million Australian dollars (84.1 million US dollars), colorectal cancer, childhood cancer and melanoma.

According to the National Institute of Health and Welfare, that means just three of the nation's 10 deadliest cancers - leukemia, brain cancer and lung cancer - are among the most well-funded.

While leukemia has an 'unavailable' five-year survival rate, 22 percent of brain cancer sufferers are expected to survive after five years, while lung cancer has a five-year survival rate of just 15 percent.

While both melanoma (skin cancer) and breast cancer are among the most prevalent in Australia, they both have a survival rate or more than 90 percent, raising questions about whether more money should be invested into finding ways to improve the survival rate of the nation's deadliest cancers.

According to the NHMRC, the current funding model is "designed to make best use of investigator-initiated and priority-driven approaches", with funding given to the cancers which affect the most people.

"The model is not designed to favor funding for particular types of cancers," the submission said.

Meanwhile in its own submission to the inquiry, Cancer Australia said a recent internal investigation had shown "proportionally lower levels of national funding to research into low-survival-rate cancer types, including lung cancer and mesothelioma, cancers of the pancreas, oesophagus and stomach".

It said it hopes for reforms which would lead to more focus on cancers with higher mortality rates. Endit