One of the biggest killers in the UK is cancer. There are over 200 kinds of cancer and each type needs to be treated specifically for that sort. Some types have higher success rates of treatment than others. A lot of research is going on into treating cancer and over the last few decades, treatments have come a long way, and for some cancers survival rates have improved enormously.
Ongoing trials including adaptive phase 1 studies and doctors and scientists working with patients to test new drugs and treatment methods has improved the outcome for cancer patients – but there is still a lot to do.
It is important to seek better treatments for cancer, as approximately 1 in 2 people in the UK will get some form of cancer during their lifetime. There are four types of cancer in the UK that are particularly common – these are breast cancer, lung cancer, bowel cancer and prostate cancer.
For most cancers, the best way to treat them is to catch them early. This is why the NHS runs screening programmes for people who are more at risk of certain cancers, such as the breast screening programme for women over 50 – this means that a cancerous growth could be caught early and someone’s life could be saved.
As well as this, the NHS also runs a cervical cancer screening programme, with the hope that any problems are detected early and can be treated much more effectively.