In 1971 the then American President, Richard Nixon, launched a ‘War on Cancer’, aimed at channelling U.S. national efforts to find a cure. This pivotal crusade resonated worldwide, not least here in Britain. The significance of such an all-encompassing initiative was recognised half a century later in the British Government’s announcement of a 10-year ‘national war on cancer’, designed to turn the tide on one of the biggest causes of death.
Breast cancer is the most common form of the disease, with around 55,000 women diagnosed each year. One in seven women in Britain are likely to develop it at some point, around 11,500 of whom die each year - almost all from secondary breast cancer, which is most prevalent in women aged under 50.
We have made remarkable progress over recent decades. Whereas most people diagnosed with cancer in the 1970s were expected to live for just one year, today the average survival time is around ten years – a huge step forward. In the 1990s, three in ten women diagnosed with early invasive breast cancer would die within five years; today that number has fallen sharply, with overall survival rates for breast cancer doubling since my childhood.
Notwithstanding this progress, serious challenges remain. The mortality rate in the UK is lower than in comparable countries, and a drop in screening is undermining crucial early diagnosis. In fact, in recent years, more than 30,000 cases of breast cancer may have been missed because of poor take-up of screening. According to the NHS one in three women in their 50s and 60s have missed mammograms in the last five years – a problem exacerbated by the pandemic.
Screening is the most effective way of saving lives. It means cancers can be identified and so treated earlier, with over 75% of women diagnosed with breast cancer surviving for 10 or more years. Knowing that if early diagnosis rates continue to fall progress will stall, last week I met the charity Breast Cancer Now. They told me that here in Lincolnshire fewer women than in many other places attended breast screening appointments when invited and that too many women are still not being invited for screening at all.
What’s more, some patients are given insufficient information about the chances of their cancer spreading or returning. Given the prevalence of secondary breast cancer this must change. So, I will work with the Lincolnshire Hospital NHS Trust to see what more can be done.
Where new treatments become available, common sense should prevail. The drug Enhertu, which cuts the spread of the disease by more than a third, is not currently licenced in England, as the regulator blocked its rollout, despite its availability in Wales and Scotland. I’ve asked questions in Parliament about this, and will press the Government to do more for women for whom this drug could be vital.
The ‘war on cancer’ hasn’t yet resulted in a miracle cure to save all the lives lost, but with continuing scientific advances there is every reason to believe that in the future there will be less to fear from cancer. We must do all we can to aid early detection, and so give many more women the best chance to defeat this dreadful disease.