Key Facts:
- Breast cancer affects 2.3 million people globally each year, with 670,000 deaths worldwide and over 20,000 diagnoses in Australia annually
- Clinical trials are essential for improving breast cancer treatments, whether testing new therapies or optimising existing ones
- Breast Cancer Trials operates across Australia, New Zealand and internationally as a non-profit research organisation conducting clinical trials
- Trials address various aspects including treatment reduction, side effect management, personalised care, fertility protection and recurrence prevention
- Patient participation in clinical trials provides access to new treatments whilst maintaining current care standards and contributes to advancing cancer treatment
World Cancer Day, marked on Wednesday February 4, is a global call to action for a cancer-free future, which can only be built through lifesaving research.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Worldwide, around 2.3 million people are diagnosed each year and about 670,000 still die from the disease.[i] In Australia, over 20,000 people are diagnosed annually and more than 3,300 lose their lives.[ii]
Breast Cancer Trials Chair, Professor Sunil Lakhani, says that behind every improvement in survival, every new diagnostic test, new drug, more precise approach to radiation or surgery, there is one constant: a clinical trial.
"It's easy to assume breast cancer is largely solved because outcomes have improved so significantly in recent decades," explains Professor Lakhani. "But anyone involved in the care of breast cancer patients knows the truth: breast cancer is not one disease, treatment can be brutal, side effects can be lifelong, and too many people still experience recurrence or metastatic disease."
Clinical trials are how treatments improve, by developing the objective evidence needed to change the current practice. It may be through new treatments or finding better ways to use existing ones: tailoring therapy to the person or reducing unnecessary treatment and hence protecting quality of life.
As a not-for-profit research organisation, Breast Cancer Trials runs and participates in clinical trials across Australia, New Zealand and internationally, working with hospitals and researchers to bring new options to improve the lives of women and men with breast cancer.
"Many of the therapies now considered routine were once available only through a clinical trial, and today's clinical trials are shaping what care will look like in the future," says Professor Lakhani. "That's why an important question to ask after a breast cancer diagnosis is: 'Is there a clinical trial for me?'"
Trials don't just test the newest drug. They also ask the questions patients care about, such as whether they can safely have less medical or surgical treatment, if long term side effects be reduced, if the experience can be personalised by matching treatment to the patient's tumour biology, can fertility be protected and if breast cancer recurrence can be stopped.
"None of this progress happens without people who volunteer to take part in a clinical trial - they are the reason cancer care improves at all," says Professor Lakhani.
Participation can also come with real benefits for patients: access to promising treatments not yet widely available, close monitoring, and the confidence that they are contributing to knowledge that could help others, while still receiving, at minimum, the best current standard of care.
On World Cancer Day, the message is simple: research saves lives — and clinical trials are the vehicle by which research becomes real-world treatment.
About us:
Founded in 1978, Breast Cancer Trials conducts a multicentre national and international clinical trials research program into the treatment and prevention of breast cancer. The work of Breast Cancer Trials has improved the treatment of breast cancer, led to changes in the way breast cancer is managed and has saved thousands of lives. More than 1,000 researchers in 118 institutions across Australia and New Zealand are committed to the vision of no more lives cut short.
