Deadliest cancers overlooked by charity donors: study

Canadians are overlooking the most deadly cancers when it comes to donating their money to charities, a new report suggests.

Charity Intelligence Canada, whose stated aim is to help Canadians make informed donation decisions, released its first Cancer in Canada report Tuesday.

The report shows funding for four of the deadliest cancers in Canada – pancreatic, stomach, lung and colorectal cancers – receive less than two per cent of cancer charity funding.

By contrast, breast cancer scoops up almost half (47 per cent) of cancer donations in Canada.

"There are a lot of cancer charities. Some of them are very small; some of them deal only in research on modest level; some don’t do research at all. I think that lumping them all together is not necessarily casting the most illumination on this issue but it’s a start," said Michael Wosnick, vice-president of research for the Canadian Cancer Society, which contributed data to the review.

Cancer charities received an estimated $1.9 billion in 2009, including $1.3 billion from government sources and $614 million from voluntary donations.

Karen Greve Young, co-author of the report and cancer research analyst, studied the top 10 cancers that take the most years of life from Canadians – lung, colorectal, breast, pancreatic, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, brain, leukemia, prostate, ovarian and stomach – plus sarcoma, Terry Fox’s cancer.

The data were complied from articles from medical journals and cancer agencies from Canada and the United States, including numbers from Statistics Canada, and information from the Canadian Cancer Society’s annual report.

"One in four Canadians lose their lives to cancer, so it’s a cause that is unfortunately, very, very important to Canadians. And our goal is to help Canadians make their donation dollars go further," said Greve Young.

With its 89 per cent five-year survival rate, breast cancer is one of cancer’s success stories. It is also the most funded cancer – receiving 28 per cent of all Canadian cancer funding.

Young said breast cancer has a strong visual image because of the highly successful pink-ribbon campaign, so she said she knew the breast cancer funding would be higher than other cancer charities, but she didn’t realize how much higher it would be.

Young said the truth is, those afflicted with the deadliest cancers aren’t getting the chance to speak out for their cause and to ask the public for support -they’re not living long enough to do so.

"Breast, leukemia, childhood cancers ask loudly and frequently whereas other cancers like pancreatic, stomach, lung and colorectal don’t have a voice," Young said.

Young said more Canadians die of pancreatic cancer in a year than there are Canadians living who have ever had pancreatic cancer.

"It strikes that quickly and is that lethal, so there literally isn’t a voice for it," Young said.

Young said she hopes Canadians will look at these findings and think about helping other underfunded cancers that are taking the most lives, so that they have the same life-saving success that breast cancer has had.

"My hope is that donors will actually try to move cancer from a disease people die from, to actually a disease that people live with and manage as a chronic condition. For some cancers, we do not yet know how to make this happen. And my hope is that donors see this as an opportunity to rectify the imbalance," Young said.

FACT BOX

Canada’s cancer research budget is approximately evenly split between general cancer research and research for specific cancer types.

Research budget allocated to specific cancer types:

– Breast: 28 per cent

– Leukemia: 12 per cent

– Prostate: nine per cent

– Brain: eight per cent

– Lung: seven per cent

– Colorectal: seven per cent

– Non-Hodgkin lymphoma: six per cent

– Ovarian: three per cent

– Sarcoma: one per cent

– Pancreatic: 0.8 per cent

– Stomach: 0.3 per cent

Cancer donation for specific cancer types:

– Breast: 47 per cent

– Leukemia: 11 per cent

– Prostate: 8 per cent

– Ovarian: 2.1 per cent

– Brain: 1.8 per cent

– Colorectal: 1.3 per cent

– Non-Hodgkin lymphoma: 0.2 per cent

– Pancreatic: 0.1 per cent

– Lung: 0.1 per cent

– Stomach: 0 per cent

– Sarcoma: 0 per cent