A CENTURY OF CANCER CARE

Until 1935, the public was unaware of the link between excess sun exposure and skin cancer – and even when I was a pale, freckled child in the 1960s, the highest SPF available was SPF14. Today, we understand the risks and factor 50 is on every pharmacy shelf. Without these advances, many times more than the 16,700 people diagnosed annually in the UK would have melanoma skin cancer.

Cancer immunotherapy (designed to prime the body’s own immune system to kill off cancer cells) has been developed in the past decade to treat advanced melanoma, with some patients with a previous life expectancy of months now surviving for years. Its use has also been expanded to treat bladder, bowel, brain, breast, cervical, kidney, lung and prostate cancers as well as leukaemia.

Breast cancer, which affects 1 in 7 UK women in their lifetime, has also seen dramatic advances in treatment. The proportion of women surviving for at least 10 years after diagnosis – by which time the vast majority have beaten it permanently – has increased from 40% in the early 1970s to almost 80% today. Over the same period, five-year survival has jumped from just over 50% to almost 90%. We have so many scientific advancements from the past 100 years to be grateful for, including the arrival of radiotherapy in 1937; in 1977, anti-oestrogen therapy (which can reduce the chance of recurrence by up to 50%), and huge advances in the past 20 years for identifying various different sub-types of breast cancer, allowing treatment to be tailored.